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J THE MINTH 

I PARADISE 




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Book ^S N5 
Copyright ]\^"_ 



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in 2011 with funding from 
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The Ninth Paradise 



THE NINTH PARADISE 

LIFE -VERSES NEW AND OLD 
BY JAMES H. WEST : BOSTON 




In the nine heavens are eight Paradises : 
Where is the ninth one? In the human breast. 

Rather, O man 1 lack those eight Paradises 
Than be without the ninth one in thy breast. 

— From the Arabic ♦ 




PRIVATELY PRINTED : BOSTON J 905 



^' 



Typographically designed and printed by the hand and 

heart of the atithor, in small size for convenient 

use, and done into a book by him, in 

his bookshop, February, J 905, 



rUBftARY of OOi^GRESS 
Copies f^cceivtk^ 

MAR 26 iyU6 

HUSH ft >uc. woi ; 






Copyright, 1905 
By James H. West 



Privately printed. Copies supplied by the 

James H. West Co^tzpany, Publishers^ Boston. 



TO 

fonv in One 'Ucet 

THESE SONGS OF DAWN AND 
NOONTIDE 



Revolve, O Earth ! Tou cannot whirl 

And in your pathway not unfurl 

Rare canvases of sky and sea 

And glowing faces, greeting me. 

Thou too revolve, my circling rhyme ! 
Not yours the art defying Time, 
Yet canvases of love you show. 
Where troubled hearts for rest may go. 

Flow on, thou Ocean at my door ! 

Not here alone your billows roar. 

But ^ mid the ice of Arctic seas 

And round the shining Cyc lades. 

Flow too,- my verse, in mobile tide ! 
On Being ^ s billows rise and ride. 
Not thine to thunder round the poles. 
But haply ye may freshen souls. 

In beauty bloom, O tasseled Corn 
And Wheatlands that the West adorn ! 
The sunlight 'j kisses crown your head 
And ye supply the world with bread, 

O soup s high uplands where I plant ! 
Life 'j simples are your harvest scant, 
Happy if seekers in your hills 
Find herbs for healing human ills. 



Contents 

PAGE 

Proem (" Revolve, O Earth ! ") i 

Soul's Paradise (Prelude) 7 

Thyself Within 9 

Coin in Any Realm 10 

Zeal 11 

Revelation 12 

Ideal Beauty 13 

To Prize Life's Hardness 14 

Hov^ Sing'st Thou, Then ? 15 

The Path, L, II 16 

Detritus, I., II., III., IV 18 

Residuum, L, II 22 

Cypress-Crowned 24 

Indian Summer 25 

In the Blue Hills in November, I., II. 26 

Life 28 

My Feathered Preacher 33 

Man's Opportunity 34 

World-Trust yj 

Alpha and Omega :i^Z 

The Transcendent Possibility ... 40 

The Kiss of Death 41 

The Passing 42 

Known of Old 44 



Contents 



PAGE 

Eastward Windows 45 

Who Knows ? 46 

Gone 48 

Sunshine 50 

Life's Beauty 53 

"Prepared" 54 

Beacon-Lights 56 

Search 57 

God's Mariners, L, II 58 

" Signs and Wonders " 60 

Worship 64 

"Of One" 65 

The Mother 66 

To Truth — My God 67 

Soul 68 

Platitudes 69 

Uplifts of Heart and Will 70 

Causation 72 

" In Thy Youth " 73 

Self-Made Crosses 74 

Inw^ard Fires 75 

Forever On 76 

Ungrasped 77 

Spirals 78 

And Last of All I Learn It 79 

" A Breath from the Fields " . . . . 80 

Daffodils 82 

Body and Spirit 84 

Mystic River 86 

In a Country Burial-Ground .... 90 

Sunrise in Codman Park 91 



Contents 

PAGE 

To My Old Wheel 92 

The Earth at Play 93 

Les Camarades 94 

In Suburban Woods 95 

So Like the Spring She Stands ... 96 

Enchanted Ground 97 

Sonata of the Dragon-fly 98 

forelooking 101 

I Feel that I Know Her 104 

Sweetest Songs are Never Sung . . 108 

" When Young Hearts Love " .... no 

A Cane FROM Gethsemane in 

The Great 116 

Lewis G. Janes 121 

The Schoolmaster's Dream 125 

Heart of Youth 130 

Old Timothy John 143 

College Hill 149 

Confessions OF A Voluptuary .... 152 

In Quest to Knov>^ 156 

Up Higher 158 

Star and Cross 160 

Merry Christmas 162 

God and Man 163 

Sage and Clown 164 

The Sorrowing Wind 167 

The Laughing Philosopher 168 

Lowell 171 

To James Vila Blake 172 

Dream-Counsel 173 

The Wail OF Low Humanity 176 



Contents 



PAGE 

Justice! Freedom! 178 

The Dayspring 179 

Accelerant 180 

To Raymond L. Bridgman 182 

In Admiration of World-Helpers . . 183 

What Are We Here For ? 184 

Up to the Heights 186 

Good Shall Conquer, Never Fear . . 188 
Man's Best W^ord God's True Word . 190 
Earth's Golden Prime Lies Infi- 
nitely On 192 

Fifty Years 194 

The Loved and Gone 196 

'' Look Back at Times " 198 

Work 200 

Love's Predicament 202 

To THE Muse 203 

*' In Grateful Love " 204 

Finished 205 

L'Envoi — "Meteors" 206 

Index 209 



Soul's Paradise 



All zones I searched — in pain — /;/ glee 
For Paradise, sweet Paradise, 

Its stately towers I ne\r could see : 
Faint Paradise, far Paradise, 

Still on I toiled courageously 

Toward Paradise, dear Paradise, 
As I approached, its walls would flee : 

Sad Paradise, fool Paradise, 

I ceased my quest ! It then found me ! 

Close Paradise, self Paradise ! 
Now hourly, where I go or be 

Is Paradise, souP s Paradise, 



Thyself Within 



Amid the ceaseless loss and change 
Of time and friends and all below, — 
(O things we love ! how swift ye go ! 
O things that are ! how new^ and strange !) - 
Ah, whither shall our spirits range 
A more eternal life to know ! 

In Syria, Ind, or Egypt sought. 

One answer only have the years 

Sent down to banish doubts and fears : — 

Within thyself must Heaven be caught 

And captive held, — or all is tears ! 

For this saints died and martyrs fought. 

Thyself within ! Thyself within ! 
O soul ! find here thy strength, thy peace. 
Pray not that loss and change may cease, - 
Pray, rather, higher heights to win ! 
Thy spirit's heavenward wings release. 
And soar thee where thou art akin ! 



Coin in Any Realm 

With place, with gold, with power — oh, 

ask me not 
With these my little hour of life to blot. 
A little hour indeed ! and I would fain 
Its moments spend in what is worth its pain. 
What traveler would faint through troublous 

lands 
To gather only what must leave his hands 
The moment that he takes his homeward 

ship ? 
Earth's goods and gauds give every man the 

slip; 
But wealth of Thought, and richer wealth 

of Love, 
Must pass for coin in any world above. 
The good to others done while here I strive 
Is all at last that shall my dying shrive; 
And, setting sail, my slight self-conquest 's 

store 
Is all my freight if I shall come to shore. 



lo 



Zeal 

To Be [ to Do ! To have the zeal to climb 
O 'er all the shocks of Fate to zones sublime ! 
To know that Time's successes, — praise 

and blame, — 
Are transient iires however fierce they flame ; 
That soon and late are equal, — death and 

birth, — 
And love's sweet dominance alone of worth; 
That toil and struggle and pain's agony 
Are nothing if the inner eye but see ! 
To realize, though cumbered in earth's ooze. 
That there are heights with ever vaster views 
To which the soul is hasting, freed from 

strife ! — 
This is the spirit's pole-star — this is life. 



It 



Revelation 



What hast thou heard, O soul, with inward 

ear. 
That makes all written Word to thee seem 

naught? . . . 
Upon the Shore Eternal I have caught 
The rhythmic murmur : One are There and 

Here, 
And life and death alike are void of fear. 
The Power that out of lowliness hath brought 
The rose to beauty, and man's spirit fraught 
With godlike aims, still pulsates every sphere ! 

We live, we love, — we vanish. Still we are. 
And in eternal round we live and grow. 
And love again, and rise to more and more. 
O ye who suffer ! all your grief unbar ! 
Ye suffer only while ye hug your woe. 
No tempest shatters on this deeper shore. 



12 



Ideal Beauty 



Ideal Beauty ! — seers' exhaustless theme 
Which hath absorbed their eager spirits quite ! 
Not beauties merely, — of the lustrous night 
2\nd iridescent day ; but loftier dream, — 
Beauty embracing beauties. Fair the gleam 
Of earliest dawn ; a purifying sight 
The heavens all diamonded : but more that 

Light, — 
The heavens' heaven, — of worlds and souls 

the Beam. 

O radiant hill-tops ! unto you mine eyes ! 
O budding violets ! all my sense ye thrall ! 
O human comrades ! heart o ' me ye thrill ! 
But Beauty uncreate in earth or skies. 
Eternal and divine, — soul's ceaseless call, — 
To thee my prayer, my passion, and my 
will ! 



^3 



To Prize Life's Hardness 

To PRIZE life's hardness! find delight in 

ways 
That scale the hill-crest and the loftier air ; 
To rouse some bird-song in the desolate 

days 
When winter holds the forest froz'n and 

bare; 
To wear the cypress as though laurel- 
wreathed ; 
To lure a smile from brows that darkly 

frown ; 
To say to traits of evil, age-bequeathed, 
'* Ye may be blotted out ! " — and fight them 

down. 
To take what Heaven or Circumstance has 

sent 
And bend it to the making of a man ! — 
This is the aim whereto my days are blent. 
My fond endeavor, waking vision, plan. 
O life ! O earth ! I prize ye for your smart. 
And for your rudeness I am glad at heart. 



H 



How Sing'st Thou, Then? 

The daily round of life — man's broken 

faith. 
The shock of accident, pain's bitter smart. 
Love's hunger, disappointment's mocking 

wraith. 
Bereavement's anguish, sudden passion's 

dart — 
O hopeful soul of mine ! the daily round 
Of life for thee is no less hard and black 
Than other mortals in their passage sound : 
How^ sing'st thou, then, — so often on the 

rack { 
And soul makes answer : Would it help my 

state 
To hail Despair? to curse? or knock the 

breast ? 
Nay ! but a song will direst ill abate. 
And bring the burdened heart unbounded 

rest. 
Each threatening ill I boldly turn to greet. 
And drown its discord in my music sweet. 



IS 



The Path 



I 

Shall I not bear my portion of life's 

pain, — 
Of mind, — of body, — and withhold all 

cry ? 
Life hath evolved through pain. The 

studious eye 
Finds here the path of Being's highest gain. 
Earth's agonies have been .earth's bliss, not 

bane. 
Then spring the torture, so I grow^ thereby ; 
Or so the hope of myriads doth not die. 
And nobler blessing yet on earth have reign ! 

Many have been w^hose flesh hath hailed the 

torch. 
Whose souls have w^elcomed contumely's 

ban. 
Devoutly chanting Freedom's songs the 

v^^hile. 
Making the gates of martyrdom a porch 
To highest heaven — the growling good of 

man ! 
Shall I not also bear, and, bearing, smile? 

i6 



"The Path 



II 

The Path I The Path ! It has been one 

of pain. 
But must it always be so : Must the rise 
Of men and nations tow'rds the Spirit's 

skies 
Be ever only under Sorrow's reign: 
Shall not man's growing insight yet attain 
A thornless pathway up to Being's prize. 
And Soul's revealing airs anoint man's eyes 
Till pangless harmony vs'lrh Good lies plain ? 

O happy age^ when Ignorance lies dead, 
When Want and Greed have iied their 

noisome place. 
And Passion, thought - redeemed, seeks 

heights above ! 
In this sweet Path, O Earth, thy sons be led. 
Till pain's long rule shall pass, and strength 

and grace 
Be won through sight o't Beauty and through 

Love. 



17 



Detritus 



I 

Could they who till the Mississippi's 
vales — 

Through thousand thousand leagues far- 
stretched and fair — 

Know well what wealth of distant mountain 
stair 

Has crumbled to endow their verdant dales ; 

Could they but hear the pounding of old 
gales 

In lands of Seneca and Crow and Bear, 

Or count the centuries the sun and air 

Have filched from forest-lands with silent 
flails : 

Did they thus ken how came their rich black 

earth, — 
By grain and grain from Gardens of the 

Gods, 
From skyey lines far yonder out of reach 
Where Alleghany, Yellowstone, have birth, — 
What new luxuriance would star their sods. 
How costHer far would gleam each vine and 

peach ! 



i8 



Detritus 



II 

O humankind ! From hills where darkness 

hides. 
From lands of old where lava- torrents hum, 
Down river-ways tumultuous thou hast 

come, — 
With yet small lodgment found where grain 

abides. 
How slow the centuries ! how bhnd the 

guides ! 
The multitude — how deaf and halt and 

dumb ! 
Yet steadily Love' s wealth adds sum to sum. 
And age by age the flood of Wrong subsides. 

O smiling plains where yet the rose shall 

bloom. 
The rose of Health, the lilies white of 

Peace, 
And every golden grain and fruitful vine : 
For thy blest fields we labor to make room. 
Where bitterness of Dead Sea fruit shall 

cease. 
And life grow rich on mingled oil and wine. 



Detritus 



III 

And thou — Mvself ! Thou, too, in hills 

unknown 
Hadst thy far rising, and thy lineage 
Lies dimly writ on equi-distant page 
With nebulas ere earth knew sea or zone. 
Dread mystery of Being ! epochs lone 
Onworking steadily with mete and gauge 
To urge old Chaos into Cosmic-stage 
And bring the Age of Man from Age of 

Stone ! 

Thine ancestry — in body and in mind — 
The fathers of thy healthfulness or pains. 
The mothers of thy victories and fears. 
Oh, who shall probe thy secret depths and 

find! 
Small clue thou holdest whom to thank for 

gains. 
Or who it is that weepest in thy tears. 



20 



Detritus 



IV 

Did some progenitor who loved the lyre 
Chant to the sunrise in the ages gray ? — 
Is that, O Self, whenever thou wouldst pray. 
Why songs ecstatic in thy soul aspire ? 
Willful, or blindly, did some other sire 
Cry to his passions, ^^ Have thy fill to- 
day"?— 
Came thus thy torture when thou wouldst 

obey 
The law of virtue — all thy frame on fire ? 

The Past is gone : it is not dead, but past : 
Its good aggrandize — Time will ease its 

wrong. 
The Present and the Future — these thy 

quest ! 
Live that, when gaze of distant years is cast 
Back to thy time by those whose lives are 

strong. 
Their tribute be, ^^ By him the world was 

blest!" 



21 



Residuum 



I 

Of all who lived aforetime, — hosts on 

hosts, — 
Dear dark-eyed babes where reedy Nilus 

swings. 
Sweet Indian maids who danced to vina- 

strings. 
White souls who peered through Persia's 

sunrise-posts. 
Meek hordes who drooped on China's 

swarming coasts, — 
Dread millions upon millions by the springs 
Of Niger, Ganges, Volga, — slaves and kings : 
Of all these now where even are the ghosts ! 

And yet they loved and worshiped, smiled 

and wept. 
Filled full, as we do, life's allotted page. 
Dreamed dreams of Good, and hoped to see 

its day. 
When myriad suns have round the planet 

crept. 
As we of others, so some curious age 
May seek our line, and wonder, ** Where 

are They ' ' ! 

22 



Residuum 



II 

And lo ! should some indeed, when we 

have passed. 
Attempt to trace our footprints in earth's 

sands. 
Think not we shall have wholly fled the 

lands : 
What once hath been doth somehow ever 

last. 
Dead dreams of Ind and Egypt still hold 

fast 
And fetter Thought in more than iron 

bands ; 
The labor of the earliest artist hands 
Is with us yet and gives our toil its cast. 

O son of man ! Strong daughter of the 

race ! 
With you to-day the good or ill resides 
Of myriad souls who yet shall weep and 

pray. 
What tinge ye give of white or crimson 

trace 
To thought and deed eternally abides : 
Ye still shall live — in saint or casta wav. 



23 



Cypress-Crowned 



To-day the winds of March are wild. 
The swallows huddle 'neath the shore ; 
Their wings are still — they cannot fly. 
But yonder, whirled about the sky. 
The gulls are circling, o'er and o'er: 
The gull is Ocean's passive child. 

The winds of Fate adversely blow. 
My friends and fellows do not sing ; 
They sing but when the waves are calm. 
I look not always for the palm, 
I take what laurels Fate may bring : 
With cypress crowned sometimes I go. 



M 



Indian Summer 



Back for a day or two are come the glow 
And warmth of August, as October wanes. 
The air is languorous glory. The proud 

stains 
Of ripened verdure signal high and low 
O'er hill and dale. Soft showers come and 

go- 
Forgetting yesterday's sharp frosts and 

pains. 

Earth laughs at losses, rich with sudden 

gains 

As magic Hghts and shadows sink and show. 

<' Come out and visit us ! " the Blue Hills 

call: 
*^From Rattle Rock or Chickatawbut scaled. 
See leagues of undulating glory spread ! 
Hourly my crimson curtains rise and fall ; — 
O come, nor let my pageant pass unhailed. 
Resounding only to the fox's tread ! " 



25 



In the Blue Hills in November 
I 

In the Storm of Sunday, November ij. 

Where Kitch-a-makin's rocky front up- 
heaves 

O'er Sassamon's fair notch in rugged lines. 

The clinging fern-growth full as bravely shines 

This dreary day as when the Spring un- 
weaves 

The first rare fronds that venture. The 
wind grieves 

And sleet whirls wild : but th' witch-hazel 
waves me signs 

That tempests daunt it not, and blackberry- 
vines. 

Still green and red, run riot through dead 
leaves. 

In Sassamon, through all the Winter's snows. 
Those ferns from their bleak crevices peep out 
And hail the hardy wanderer through the hills. 
They never fail him. Happy he who knows. 
Amid the city's lonely-populous rout. 
Where welcome waits which soothes all 
earthly ills. 



In the Blue Hills in November 
II 

l7i the Sii7ishhie of S^mday^ Nove^nber 20. 

November — fickle monarch — jocund rules : 
For what a morning ! — air the air o^ May, 
In Sassamon the chickadees at play. 
And zephyrs dancing over ice-clad pools ! 
With melting frosts Nahanton's visage drools. 
And on its shriveled breast, so lately gay. 
Dead stalks of golden-rod and asters sway 
In ghostly caps and bells — poor Nature's 
fools. 

Alas ! 'tis but an hour or two of sun. 
And then the freezing night shall lull again 
To dreamless sleep this dull half-wakened 

bee ! 
Yet flaunt, O sumach-plumes, till day is 

done ! 
Your faith, surviving keenest joy and pain 
Which life can blend, is eke the faith of me. 



27 



Life 

Oft, when I have walked at dawning by the 

margin of the sea. 
Of the hopefulness of Nature it has sung its 

song to me. 

With a soul tow'rd. light determined I have 
sought its secret word. 

And its accents have been music I have else- 
where never heard. 

True, the sea itself is *^ cruel" — never 

shrinks it back for pain. 
But its tide-falls cleanse the continents, its 

mists bring tender rain. 

So throughout the whole of Nature, — there 

is evidence of good. 
Bringing progress out of chaos, smiling fields 

where oceans stood. 

And 'tis thus — a meaning finding even in 

its harshest strife — 
That I follow onward cheerly through this 

wondrous thing called life. 



28 



L^ 

Life ! whose warp is ceaseless effort, while 

its web is Progress still. 
As it was through countless epochs ere the 

world knew human Will. 

Life ! the symphony whose harmony would 

languish into death 
If it never knew the discord which brings 

out its sweeter breath. 

Life ! the fair and boundless continent, amid 

whose sunlit ways 
We enact heroic dramas, living nobly-eager 

davs. 

• 

True, our petty ^^ titles'' vanish — but we 
live not for a '' name " ; 

To exist in added world-good were a thou- 
sand times the fame ! 

And we know we cannot act a deed of good 

or deed of ill. 
But its ends, accruing ever, through eternities 

shall thrill. 



29 



^^/^ 

He who, aching, tills the corniield, in what- 
ever valley far — 

Nobler he in manhood's best than any war- 
left living scar. 

Toiling poet, humble scient, seeking Mother 

Nature's best — 
In the growing good of ages far outweigh 
they all the rest. 

Nobler he than lords of wealth, who in the 

smart of modern need 
Reaches lowly hand of help to bridge the 

stream of human greed. 

So on life's unmeasured rim we nobly act, 

nor seek return : 
While before us, steadfast ever, Hope's 

eternal torches burn. 

And 'tis worth the struggle! . . . Faithless! 

faithless of our Mother Nature's power 
To sit down with dull despairings, and to 

hopeless wail an hour ! 



30 



Life^ 

Are not we a part of Nature ? Then to us 

the new-age call 
The long prayer of years to answer, and on 

earth bring Peace for all. 

Here no room for '^ floating foam- wreaths 
wafted down from moonlit shores ' ' : 

Here the summons to work desperate while 
the hot sun deadly pours ! 

Brothers ! know ye not men languish for the 

help that you can give ? 
Spend your years in action ! action ! that a 

dead world may new- live. 

Let who careless will ^^ pledge wine-cup at 
the banquet or the rout ' ' : 

Here our place is — to bring joyance to 
those hungry eyes without. 

Oh, the happiness of living, when we claim 

a lofty work ! 
'Tis in faithRil future Doing that the good 

of man shall lurk. 



31 



Life 

Life shall then have purpose for us — we 

shall see it is divine; 
And in fact, not dreamings longer, shall the 

'^ flower-decked Eden" shine. 

Not in vain we seek Life's meaning. If we 

lift our heedful eyes 
Voices everywhere enthrall us — the whole 

universe replies. 



32 



My Feathered Preacher 

All day my maples in the blast have bowed ; 
The sleet howls lustily through shivering 

limbs ; 
Yet e'en though ice the creaking branches 

rims. 
There with high hardihood he hovereth 

proud — 
Busy and bustling ! Full and sweet and loud 
His warbling cheer the wintry whistling dims. 
So amid persecution rose the hymns 
Of dearest trust from martyrs newly vowed. 

Soul of my soul ! for secret, sheltered nook 
Must thou forever pray when blasts are nigh 
And howUng passions, seeking thee, stream 

by ? 
Nay, O my soul, in the gale's teeth dare 

look ! 
Still fighting, sing ! lift undismayed thy din : 
Only undaunted hearts scale heaven and 

win. 



33 



Man's Opportunity 



I 

He does not think — he does not know : 
A wave is breaking on the shore ; 
A wave surcharged with richest ore 

And tinged with deepest golden glow. 

He heeds it not — he does not know : 
It scatters pearls athwart his path ; 
It bathes as in a purple bath 

The boundaries where his feet must go. 

He heeds it not — he passes by : 
It breaks, it bursts upon the strand. 
Its wealth is squandered on the sand. 

Its pearls in shattered fragments fly. 



II 

He does not know — he does not guess 
A flower is blossoming at his feet ; 
A flower is oiFering incense sweet — 

And fading in the wilderness. 



34 



Man's Opportunity 



He heeds it not — he passes on : 
Its purple petals droop and die ; 
Its wealth is wasted on the sky : 

It might have bloomed by Helicon. 



Ill 

He does not know — he does not dream : 
A star is flaming in the sky ; 
A star that passeth swiftly by, — 

A star of high, transcendent gleam ! 

He sees nor feels its cheering light : 
It glows and gleams indeed, to-day ; - 
To-morrow, deepening into gray. 

Shall find it vanished in the Night. 

IV 

He does not seek — he does not think : 
A fountain gushes at his hand : 
Its wealth he does not understand : 

He looks nor moves, nor stoops to drink, 



35 



Man's Opportunity 



V 

He does not think — he does not know : 
A song is trembling through the air ; 
A bird is warbling anthems rare 

And murmuring lyrics sweet and low. 

He hears nor heeds — he passes on : 
And wings are raised — a birdling flies ; 
The trembling cadence fails and dies : 

The anthem and the bird are gone. 

VI 

He does not know — he does not take. 
A wave, a flower, a star, a song, 
A fountain — all to him belong. 

Oh, when shall he arise — awake ! 



36 



World -Trust 



Through thickest sea-coast fog we ploughed 

our way. 
With added darkness of the night around ; 
A watery rod or two was all the bound 
O'er which on either side our eyes might 

play. 
The ebb and rising of the billows gray 
Monotonously smote, with scarce a sound : 
But overhead shone stars on bluest ground. 
That guided us to safety in the Bay. 

O stars of Hope ! that in the human heart 
Have always somewhere shone with light 

undimmed ! 
Through hours begloomed ye strike your 

cheering dart. 
And with the night-songs trusting saints have 

hymned 
Cause our anxiety and pain to flee. 
In peace on-leading us o'er life's dim sea. 



37 



Alpha and Omega 



Dim in the dark Eonian caves. 

Deep in the Night of earliest Time, 

There trembled low beneath the waves 

A mimic protoplasmic sphere, — 

A globule small, whose curve severe 
Bore in its heart a germ sublime. 

Naught else in all the universe 

Such germ possessed as glowed in this ; 
A germ whose warmth would soon disperse 
The gloom which bound earth's silent corse : 
The germ sublime of deathless Force ! — 

Earth's mystery of mysteries. 

Lichens and moss now found a place — 
Or whence or how, what tongue may tell ? 

And ferns and grasses filled the space 

Where erst dull clods and dust had been ; 

While rustling leaves, with lips unseen. 
Called to the Ages, '^ All is well." 

Lizards and dragons, monstrous forms. 

Sights that men's eyes would shrink to 
see ! 
Shrieks above elemental storms ! — 

38 



Alpha and Omega 



x\h I through wha: pain was life evolved 1 
Onlv through death and conquest solved, — 
Struggle and blood and agony. 

But see I a kindlier hour should come ! 

Rapine and force sank, shrinking, low ; 
Thought, invention, showed fairer sum. 
Hither came Man I — yes, crude indeed. 
But climbing to heart and mind with speed. 

On him the gods their best bestow. 

Love, aspiration, — powers sublim^e I 

Sympathy, help, — these Now have place, 
O for the years of Coming Time ! — 
What shall they bring oi better yet : 
Courage ! not yet man's sun is set. 
Good ii in store for all the race. 



39 



The Transcendent Possibility 

Amid a treeless prairie vast 

A horseman stayed at set of sun : 

With eyes far strained o'er shadows dun 

He swept the waste his steed had passed, 

x^nd onward, o'er the path to be. 
And there and here, on every side. 
But naught in Nature's round repHed; 

His gaze met blank obscurity. 

Yet, ah, the man w^as Nature's child ! 
He trusted Her who gave him birth : 
He laid him on the flower-spread earth. 

Amid the grewsome vastness wild. 

He knew not he should wake again : 
To wake or sleep he knew was good. 
In love with air and sea and wood 

His eyes he shut with sweet Amen. 

His arm for pillow — this was all ; 
Uncovered lay he on earth's breast: 
But rested he with gracious rest. 

And o'er him gleamed the star-set wall. 



40 



The Kiss of Death 

My little child lay moaning as she slept. 
What dream of evil through her slumbers 

crept 
I knew not — but her forehead I caressed. 
And to her trembling lips my own I pressed. 
Smiling, she woke. Her' grief had taken 

wing. 
The kiss had power to make her sorrow 

sing. 

Is here a parable ? Is life a dream r 
Doth all our anguish not exist, but seem ? 
Daily — not sleeping, but awake — we moan ! 
Yes! but the guest-room — it is Nature's 

own ; 
And may it be that she, when ends our 

breath. 
Wakes us to Peace with that sweet kiss of 

Death ? 



41 



The Passing 



A MYSTERY? — true; yet I fear not to go. 
Nothing harsh can be. Indeed, when I know 

We are never alone ; that within us and out 
Throbs ever the Might that engirds us about ; 

That the Power which developed us reigns 

through all, 
A limitless Sea — not a vertical Wall ; 

When I learn how the Forces of Death and 

Life 
Intercircle forever, yet never at strife; 

When I know that the Order and Beauty 

around 
With the Life of the All-Life ever abound ; 

That every bird on every tree 

Is thrilled a-through with God's own glee; 

That every gleam from human eye 

Is a gleam of the All-Soul's Mystery, — 



42 



The Passing 



Fain would I leave this house of clay. 
To travel with God on his endless way. 

To whirl with the atom, or dance with the 

light. 
Or glow in a star to illumine earth's night. 

Things fail not. Though earth - life has 

passage like dreams 
The Order Eternal still pulses and streams. 

We know not ^^soul" passes ! We only can 

know 
That pass if it must, 'tis to else it will go. 

It cannot be lost. It is bound up with All ; 
And, while anything lasts, shall the Soul of 
things fall? 

Come, Death ! For him thou hast terrors 

nor pains 
Who deems, though he vanish, he deathless 

yet reigns. 



43 



Known of Old 



Where walks he — my companion known 

of old. 
Star bright, with whom I wandered arm in 

arm? 
Each shielded each at the approach of harm. 
Each counseled each with loving wisdom bold. 
He vanished, and the summer lane grew cold. 
For him, for me, life, death, knew no alarm ; 
No less, on hill, and by the river farm, 
I walk alone, while he the Way of Gold. 

Where now he treads what sunrise-glories 

burn ? — . 
I dream in vain his pathway through the 

blue. 
Yet feel 'tis on and on, through endless mile. 
And doth he wait for me at some fair turn. 
With eager eye expecting me in view ? 
Be mine to make the meeting worth the 

while ! 



44 



Eastward Windows 



No MORE I see them at the accustomed 

pane, — 
Two glowing faces, fair and full of glee. 
That always smiled and signaled friendlily 
As I went daily down the morning lane. 
Each night when I returned, I looked in vain ; 
The sash was dark, nor could I ever see 
Or boy or girl to wave or welcome me : 
Yet with the morrow they were there again ! 

The morning now is but another night : 
But all the lane still rings with songs not sad, 
Down flung from skies with this new bliss 

increased ; 
And oft I think, since they have taken 

flight. 

Of two bright morning faces making glad 
Some casement fronting the Eternal East. 



45 



Who Knows ? 



What sailor knows, beneath the wave he 
lies on. 

The secrets of the sea? 
Who fathoms Time, beyond the dim horizon 

That bounds Eternity ? 

Who knows the depths of the Eternal Spaces ? 

The course the comets run? 
Who knows what light illuminates men's 
faces 

Beyond the moon and sun? 

Daily we wonder what they may be doing 

In that fair heaven afar : 
Nor deem we that their steps are but pursuing 

The space from star to star. 

*' There will be Light ! " Still sounds the 
Voice Eternal. 

And aye the Light will be. 
New stars, new suns, new satellites supernal 

Blaze forth continually. 

Whose hands, it may be, clothe the high 
Sierras 
Of those new worlds with white ? 



46 



Pf^ho Knows? 



Whose kindly fingers dissipate the terrors 
Of their Antarctic night? 

Invention fails ; imagination falters ; 

We may not read the sky : 
But this we know : Anigh the heavenly altars. 

Affection cannot die ! 

They love us still ! the beautiful and tender r 

Who early, one by one. 
Have fled earth's darkness for supernal 
splendor. 

Earth ' s shadows for the sun ! 

O Angel-Sisters ! have us in your keeping ! 

We know ye are not dead ! 
We know our hearts might hear, were they 
not sleeping. 

Your pinions overhead ! 

O Angel- Mothers ! beautiful as Morning, 

And brighter than the Day ! 
Our earthly doubts with heavenly grace 
adorning. 

Ye steal our hearts away ! 



47 



Gone 

From my sleep I start, and gaze without. 
What is this load — this load of doubt — 
This weight, that presses so hard and deep 
Upon my heart that I cannot sleep ? 
That presses so hard — with such a heat — 
That my burning heart will scarcely beat r 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 

She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 

I gaze from my window — I gaze on high : 
Coldly the moon slants down the sky — 
Cold as the cold and icy weight 
That lies in the Valley Desolate — 
That lies in the valley of death and gloom 
Where earth for its beautiful bride made 
room. 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 

She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 

Faint on my bed falls the light of stars : 
Red at the door of his tent stands Mars — 
Red as the lurid light that throws 
Vesuvius' shade on Italian snows. 



48 



Gone 

Faintly it falls on her lowly mound. 
And reddens the landscape all around. 

Sunk is the star that beckoned me on ! 

She whom I loved is gone, is gone ! 

what to my heart remains of good ! . . . 

1 mind that when last by her side I stood. 
She pointed her finger — she pointed high : 
^' I die," she murmured, '^ yet shall not 

die!" 
That finger uplifted I still can see ; 
And it beckons, eternally beckons to me. 
She whorri I loved — ah no ! not gone ! 
The star that once beckoned still beckons 
me on ! 



49 



Sunshine 



Wohlauf ! es nift der Sonnenschein 
Hinaus in Gottes freie Welt ! " 

— TiECK : Zuversicht. 



O SLUGGISH slumberer, awake ! — 

The sunlight calls thee ! 
Earth's sullen clods beneath thee quake; 
The promised buds of springtide break ; 
The green sedge quivers by the lake. 
No longer winter's gloom appalls thee; — 
But out where birds and blossoms wake, 
God's sunlight calls thee ! 

The bobolink beside the brook 

Sings, never weary ; 
The sobbing pine, so long forsook. 
Is loud with caw of crow and rook ; 
And where the snow-hung elder shook. 
And sighed through all the winter dreary. 
The robins, as in ^sop's Book, 
Chant loud and cheery. 

Within the woodland green and wild. 

The fern is springing; 
And near the maiden-hair so mild. 



50 



Sunshine 



And golden mosses high up-piled. 
The violet. Nature's favorite child. 
Its fragrance on the air is flinging. — 
How often hath its breath beguiled 
My heart to singing ! 

O weary soul ! beset by toil 

From dawn till gloaming ! — 

Like Bunyan's Pilgrim, flee the broil ! 

Forsake the city's ceaseless moil; 

Come out, and tread the tender soil 
Of Beulah, where no footstep, roaming. 

Fails of the priceless wine and oil 
Of Nature 's foaming ! 

Pale students ! poring over books 

And musty Latin ! — 
Shakespeare read sermons in the brooks ! 
Through far Ionian seas and nooks 
Old Homer, godlike in his looks. 
Roved singing of earth's robe of satin ! 
And Virgil's shepherds timed their crooks 

To Nature's matin ! 

O aching feet ! enforced to tread 
Hot urban places ! — 



si 



Sunshine 



That fain would wander, fain would wed 
The velvet of some mossy bed ! 
Ye sometime, as the Prophet said. 
Shall rove the wide Eternal spaces ! — 
Rove sometime with the happy dead. 
In heavenly places ! 

O sorrowing heart ! — for him, for her. 

Who left thee weeping ! 
Canst thou not deem this wondrous stir 
Of springtide leaf and gossamer 
A mild angelic minister? — 
This wakefulness, where all was sleeping. 
Is it not heaven's own messenger 

To stay thy weeping? 

Shall not the clouds that roll afar 

On life's horizon 
Flee too, like winter's broken bar? 
And in their stead a ghttering star 
Arise, that Eons shall not mar? 
This is the hope our heart relies on ; — 
And such shall be ! when rolls ajar 

Heaven's fair horizon ! 



52 



Life's Beauty 



Oh, when often in my bosom 

Glows a longing for life's Beauty, 

Something in me whispers, — urging, - 
' Tis incentive to life ' s Duty ! 
'Tis high impetus to Dutv. 

And I know the voice speaks truly. 
For high peace finds never mortal 

Save in strong, sublime endeavor 
Worshipful at Duty's portal; 

Steadfast, meek, at Duty's portal, 

Flame, then, in my bosom. Beauty ! 
Flame and glow with fire supernal. 

Thou shalt lead me — willing go I ! — 
To life's blessedness eternal, 
• Unto joys ideal, eternal. 



>3 



^' Prepared " 



I KNOW not why good men should say 
That he who dreams a dream divine. 
And seeks it, soulful, does not ** pray '* ! 
That he who still sees Beauty shine 
Through all life's ill, and flowers entwine 
With solar glow to hide earth's gray. 
Is drunk with ^'irreligious" wine — 
Because he does not ** pray " ! 

Nor know I why good men should sigh. 
Deeming him far from good and God 
Who yet in darkness hears Love's cry; 
In lambent orb and lowliest sod 
Progressive Purpose can descry, 
A Presence broad and deep and high, — 
Finding alike in soul and clod 
A '^ very present " God ! 

I know not why good men have sought 
To speak him ** Christless " who yet goes 
In paths the Galilean taught, — 
Seeking what he his neighbor owes. 



54 



cc 



Prepared'' 



Striving poor lives w^ith misery fraught 
To heal of something of their woes. . . . 
^* But ah ! he cries not ^ Lord/ — and ought ! 
This man of ^ Christless ' thought ! ' ' 

Well I o'er him flushes golden sky ! 
Better than night he loves the day. 
He dwells in the ^^ divine," say I. 
And oh, he has no need to pray — 
More than his w^ant is the supply ! . . . 
So, ^' doing the Will," and ^^ knowing the 

Way," 
He Stan deth needy world -souls nigh, — 
'^ Prepared " to live or die. 



3> 



Beacon-Lights 



The brilliant beacon-lights that bound the 

shore 
Guide safe the storm-tossed mariner to port. 
What matter, green or gold, or tall or short ? 
What matter, shown from rock, or bluiF, or 

tower ? 
He questions not their color, size, or power. 
But heeds their warning with his every 

thought : 
He heeds their warning, and the ship is 

brought 
To home and harbor in a happy hour. 

Along the headlands of life's turbulent sea 
Aye gleam undimmed the guiding lights of 

Love ! 
What matter, Jew, Greek, Christian, if the 

Light 
Be followed faithfully ? It then shall be 
A Guiding Light indeed, to Ports above : 
A pillar of cloud by day, of fire by night. 



56 



Search 



What thought of God have hungering men 

to-day 
That they themselves have not sought out 

and found r 
What spot of earth is christened holy 

ground 
But where high souls have walked their 

human way ? 
What laws and precepts by which sages say 
Life's good is best set free and evil bound. 
But came from fine endeavors proven sound 
By loves and agonies of young and grav r 

All faith, all knowledge springs in man's 

own heart, 
And from his partial sight he molds his 

creed. 
Not thinking he shall wider know and see ! 
Henceforth mankind shall learn this wiser 

part : — 
Who honors Truth in thought and word 

and deed. 
He best, O mighty Marvel, worships Thee. 



57 



God's Mariners 



Written for " Unity " (Chicago), on its Twett- 
tieth Birthday, March j, i8g8. 

I 

TWENTY YEARS PAST. 

A VOYAGE such as vessel never knew. 
Forth-starting on a cruise but dimly planned. 
Provisioned meagerly, though ably manned. 
And steadfast, as each heavenly beacon grew 
Revealing whither — through horizons new ! 
A course with rocks and shoals on every 

hand. 
And leading, some have feared, to No- 
Man 's-Land! — 
Though ever, overhead, God's heavens were 
blue! 

Yes, and God's winds have kissed the prow 

through all. 
Till crew and steersman feel the chilly air 
Grow warm at last, and thus have strength 

to cope 
With what may yet remain of tidal wall. 
Far in the wake has faded Point Despair ; 
Yonder, ahead, looms up the cape. Good 

Hope. 



58 



God's Mariners 



II 

TWENTY YEARS TO COME 

On shore — O hungry eyes with yearning 

gaze ! 
On shore — O eager and beseeching cries ! 
** Sail on, ye sailors, where high dreams 

arise, ' ' 
They call, ^' and bring us to the better days ! 
We droop amid these sordid works and ways. 
Where social greed, and hungering for the 

skies. 
Becloud men's sight to Being's loftiest prize ! 
Sail on — till entered are God 's palm-fringed 

bays!" 

Yea, gallant barque ! though twenty years ye 

sail. 
Add twenty more, and twenty more to that. 
And hungry eyes on shore shall follow still ! 
For yet shall spirits faint, and faces pale. 
And many a human dream fall prone and 

fiat. 
Ere we have fathomed truly God's high will. 



59 



"Signs and Wonders" 

I ASK not *' miracles " to guard my faith 
And keep it from the clutch of grim 
Despair ! 
To me a miracle is but a wraith. 

While Gracious Fact is mine in earth and 
air. 

In Nature 's Constancy I find my joy ; 

I know that Good has been, will always be. 
And now in manhood, even as a boy, 

I ask but Natural Opportunity. 

I ask but still the rosy light of morn. 

The strength that after rest makes labor 
sweet ; 

To know the simpler deeds that life adorn. 
That I may follow with glad, willing feet. 

Beauty doth everywhere paint sights for me. 
Raising the dead at heart to life divine ; 

I view the dawn-winds walking on the sea. 
Suns in rich vineyards making water wine. 

Concentric circles of earth, wave, and sky. 
Cut by the far horizon's purple rim, — 



60 



cc 



Signs and Wonders '' 



All come as miracle, — as such go by, — 
And all compel from me the grateful hymn. 

The laws Mind follows to Thought's far- 
thest zone 
In conquest over Nature's secrets vast, — 
These, too, I know who studieth makes his 
own. 
Gaining rare triumphs that his life outlast. 

The fossils in the rocks I count my prize, — 

More eloquent by far than o'erwrit 

^^Text"! 

They are God's own Epistle for man's eyes. 

Not records ^{ij scribbling monks have 

vext. 

And yonder Lights ! . . . O tireless-swinging 
Orbs! 
Not in a trillion years one hair's-breadth 
free 
From paths the Energy which all absorbs 
Marked out from vast eternities for thee ! — 

A ^' Bible " ye indeed ! wherein I scan 
Forces which never tire, retrace, nor 
bend ; — 



6i 



(C 



Signs and Wonders '' 



From which I solve, or seem to solve, for 
Man, 
The law on -urging him to some fine end. 

Nor these alone, but thousand sounds and 
signs. 
Around, beneath, within, in soul and 
clod, — 
A child's sweet kisses. Summer's purpling 
vines, — 
Alike proclaim the ever-present God. 

So onward go I, silent in the crowd ; 

I hear the clamor, but I answer not. 
What harm to me their whisperings low or 
loud! 

The Law Eternal can they change a jot ? 

And for the rest, — our own small arc of 
Time, — 
Though little know I, much I hope and 
trust. 
At any rate, mine nozc^ the Power Sublime, 
Not into cycles dead and distant thrust ! 

Yea, for the rest I am content to know 
For ages yet shall Spring nor Autumn cease ; 



62 



(C 



Signs and Wonders *' 



While, east or west, — where'er I turn or 

go,— 
A Voice in pines, in wheat-lands, whis- 
pers '^ Peace ! " 

Let others in dim child-world dreamings 
dwell. 
Still bolstering bravely up their marvelous 
tales. 
Roaming through Purgatories, Heavens, and 
Hell 
With faith that must have '^miracles " or 
faik! — 

Ample for me is Nature's hourly wealth. 
Her Present wonders, — helpful, lavish, 
sure ! 
With these, and open eyes, my soul finds 
health ; 
Through life and death my victories en- 
dure. 



63 



Worship 



Must fear indeed accept what love denies. 
And faith receive what reason bids disdain ? 
Can priestly word wash out hate's caustic 

stain. 
Or cross or shambles purge a soul of lies ? 
O signs and symbols by which conscience 

buys 
An anaesthetic for its soul-birth pain. 
Too long ye charm a world which seeks to 

gain 
A listless mansion in the dubious skies. 

Arouse, O child of mystery unguessed ! 
Put goodness in thy life and in thy creed ! 
To-day well-lived best wins the day to be 
And linds it in undreamed-of beauty dressed. 
Tradition's staif is but a broken reed. 
While love and truth uphold the skies and 
sea. 



64 



"Of One" 



Jesus, thy teachings oft have made me smart 
When I have failed in love for fellow-men. 
Siddartha, grief has been my portion when 
Thy selflessness has taught my feverish heart 
Its vain ambitions. When some coward 

start 
Has seized me, thou, Mohammed, then 
Hast stirred to bravery. Thy moral ken, 
Confucius, spurs me when I fail life's better 

part. 

O saviors many, of time old and new ! — 

Alike ye lead from darkness to the light. 

O words as high within my own calm 

breast ! — 
No less ye summon Wisdom to pursue. 
Still sound, O clarions oi love and right. 
Till I win Freedom serving your behest. 



65 



The Mother 



Why should we limit Power and Mystery 
To one poor pronoun of our human speech r 
Has deity no higher, wider reach 
Than we can grasp when glibly we say 

^^He"? 
The fertile universe at least is ^* She," 
Fruitful in brain and pinion, flower and 

peach ; — 
And ever dumb when we its face beseech. 
It seems but '^ It," it stands so silently. 

O mighty Mother ! — foremost art thou this ! 
And we thine offspring, clinging to thy 

breast ! 
Thou givest us the stars and streams for toys ; 
In thy benignant smile alone is bliss. 
Though ignorant, in thy wise calm we rest. 
And when thou frownest, darkened are our 

joys. 



66 



To Truth — My God 

Till ages fail. 

And love receives its own ; 
Till Eons pale. 

And faith is wiser grown. 
Be Truth my God. 

I may not always live 

My high Ideal, 
But high resolve I give. 
Come woe or weal. 
To Truth — my God. 

And thus,'! feel. 

My soul shall never fail ! 
The buds that heal 

Pass not with frost or hail, — 
They grow to more ! 

And though eye may be dim. 

And sense be weak. 
My heart still chants its hymn. 

Soul joy doth speak — 
God more and more. 



67 



Soul 

Who that perceives the mocking flare of 
sense. 
Or catches vision of the orb of Love, 
Can doubt which glow shines sweetest 
recompense — 
The valley murk, the unwavering star 
above ? 

Yet oh, the paradox ! that those in shame 
Should dream that they alone encompass 
bliss. 

When 'tis but fitful, phosphorescent flame 
To soul-exalting planet-ray like this ! 

vision fair of oneness with the Whole ! 
In thee alone is blessedness and truth ; 

Insight and strength are thy sweet gifts, O 
Soul, 
And lofty promise of eternal youth. 

Give me to rove in the supremer air ! 

Give me the mountain-side to toil and 
climb ! 

1 shall breathe easier and freer there, 

I shall die calmer on those heights sublime. 



68 



Platitudes 



The froth of pleasure quickly sinks to lees, 
Irs taste soon brackish on the dullest tongue. 
Only the highest strife brings highest ease ; 
From self alone is selfhood's victory wrung. 

In every prophet-path rude crosses lift, 
And nails are ready upon every hand ; 
Spear-heads and vinegar are all earth's gift. 
And quarreling the hooting rabble stand. 

Who seeks for blessedness need only drink : 
Want much, ye thirst, however fast ye 

pour; 
Seek peace, all heaven is yours before ye 

think : 
All that makes hell ye knew full well 

before. 

Out on such cursed platitudes ! but, — 

mark, — 
The truth they hold makes Being bright or 

dark. 



69 



Uplifts of Heart and Will 

Uplifts of eager heart and earnest will ! 

Pulsings of soul ! — 
These, in their high, unintermittent surge. 

Make Being whole. . . . 

Surgings of Spirit tow'rds the unknown 
Source 

Whence cometh all ; 
Surgings of Will to Duty, fair or hard. 

Whatever befall: 

Ambitions high, to follow nobly out 

The earthly Real ; 
Resolves no less to breathe heaven's purer 
air — 

The far Ideal ! 

Strugglings for self — to win and nobly use 

Time's fairer good; 
Strugglings sublime for others — to make fact 

Man's brotherhood ! 

Not surgings for an hour to rush and roar. 
And then subside; 



uplifts of Heart and Will 

But higher, holier surgings, that shall pour 
In endless tide. . . . 

These are the Race, the Goal, the Home, 
the God, 

In all earth's strife ; 
These are, and shall be ever, soul of soul. 

And life of life. 



71 



Causation 



She played, an innocent darling, 'mid the 

flowers ; 
Hid ivy foully poisoned her. She sang, 
A child, on forest edge, — till suddenly rang 
Her agony from bee-stings 'mid the bowers. 
Grown to fair maidhood, golden were her 

hours ! 
Love beatific, holy, filled her breast. 
A tempter met her. Why reveal the rest ? 
Above her wave-lapt corse no marble towers. 

Happy and prosperous one, by Fortune 

crowned ! 
Thee doth thy '^virtue" keep? And was 

it ^'sin " 
That wrecked her of her all? Nay, world, 

begin 
More wisely Nature 's secret depths to sound. 
Man needs a knowledge not yet taught in 

schools. 
Seek out yet more her laws. Causation rules. 



72 



"In Thy Youth" 



What is true manliness? With banner's 

sweep 
To flaunt abroad that powers have come full 

tide ? — 
With scornful lawlessness to scatter wide 
Sweet secrets you and God alone should keep r 

To come full-orbed, yet mightily to know 
The Titan thrill of holding power in thrall — 
This is true manliness ! and this the call 
For thee high-flung which diamond trumpets 
blow; 



73 



Self-Made Crosses 



After the palm and cheer — the scoiF and 
cross ! 

But his were love and innocence who bore. 

Ah ! what of those, the willfhl, 'mid the roar 

Of passionate ills that mark their pain and loss ! 

Sinning, transgressing, they seem to wear the 
crown ; 

Joyous they laugh, and dream, ^^ 'T is vic- 
tory." 

Ah ! but the awful sequence of their glee 

Drags them and strips them, fainting, shud- 
dering, down. 

There — the world's helper, pierced by 

s corners who 
With evil hands uplifted him, the pure : 
Here — the maimed throng whose mangled 

lives endure 
Only the nails themselves drove thoughtless 

through. 
Ah, even than that central scaffold drear. 
Sadder the crosses for ourselves we rear ! 



74 



Inward Fires 



My heart would sing for joy ! 

A friendly hand is reached 
And lights earth's dull annoy ! 
Kindness is at me flung. 
Better than song e'er sung 

Or sermon ever preached. 

' T is not the gift I prize : 

It is the heart behind. 
O men and women ! rise 
To understand how more 
Is love than golden ore ! 

Too long men's souls are blind. 

With nobleness meet all ! 

Thou hast undreamed return 
In lifting feet that fall. 
In rescuing the faint : 
No artist-hand can paint 

The fires that inward burn. 

And inward fires alone 

Are those that warm us long. 
Nought outward can atone 
For sinking in the sea 
Love's opportunity ! — 

Thus sings my heart its song. 



75 



Forever On 



I WOULD not look at life's high aim aslant ! 
Life is for growth ! It is a mountain plant. 
Its roots descending, but its leaves upspread ; 
A shoot divine, whose seeds, when we are 

dead. 
Should spring immortally in other life. 
Potent in tendencies to nobler strife. 
Showing the soul's high lure, till Time be 

gone. 
To Be, to Do, and so forever on. 



i(> 



Ungrasped 



On many a marvel which Nature discloses 
Man's eye never looks, and the daintiest 
roses 
Bloom wild where his footsteps may never 
have stirred. 
Unseen by man's eye, and untouched by 

his hand. 
Lie treasures unnumbered awaiting command. 
If only his heart and his will say the word. 
With noble realities life is replete : 
But he who shall seek them with wandering 
feet 
Shall never earth's best benediction have 
heard . 



spirals 

Daily we mount them all, from Pit to 

Dome ! 
Not Dante's circling choirs, nor Raphael's, 
Nor all the devious aisles of heavens and hells 
In phantasies of Asia, Egypt, Rome, 
Surpass soul's fluctuations. Seeking home. 
The clank of chains, the chime of silvery 

bells, — 
Shame, Passion, Song, — in turn each sinks 

and sw^ells ; 
Now Faith soars high — now^ all seems flash 

and foam. 

O fateful circle where I most part fare. 
Dim Middle Region, — Purgatorial fog, — 
By equal fears and hopefulness opprest ! 
At times I fain would wing through clearer 

air. 
Yet joyful move I — mindless of each 

clog — 
Tow'rd dreamed - of spheres where dwell 

the pure and blest. 



78 



And Last of All I Learn It 

And last of all I learn it ! Yea, O soul. 
Have patience not alone with those around — 
Poor will-less beings sin and habit bound : 
With wealth, that offers but a piteous dole 
Though fainting worldlings pant for happier 

goal; 
With statesmen, paltering on patriot ground ; 
With churchmen, silent though God's trum- 
pets sound : 
With all that faileth of the Perfect Whole ! 

Have patience also — full, serene, and free. 
Lasting and deep, and with as gracious part 
As that thou showest every wayward elf — 
When thou hast failed to grandly do and be. 
And failing, feelest sorrow at thy heart. 
Have patience, oh, have patience with — thy- 
self. 



79 



" A Breath from the Fields " 



[ To , who sent to me, in the city, a box of 

spring blossoms as " a breath from the fields r\ 

'' A BREATH from the fields ! ". . . 

Ah me ! 
Could I paint the vision I see ! 

For under the spell of these flowers 
The avenue, busy and hot. 
And the office, and v^^ork, are forgot ; 

And these granite and marble towers 
Quick vanish away, and quick 
The whole desert of fiery brick. 

'' A breath from the fields ! ". . . 

All day 
My spirit has languished to stray 

From the City of Turmoil. And now 
On the magical carpet of Thought, 
On the pinions these blossoms have brought, 

I am wandering where the bough 
Of the elm with the maple blends. 
And the song of the robin ascends ! 

'' A breath from the fields ! ". . . 

The sweets 
Of a myriad marguerites 

Are flooding with incense the air ! 



80 



"yf Breath from the Fields " 

And a dream my heart besets 
As I gaze on the violets — 

A dream and a splendor rare — 
Of a brook where the blood-root drinks. 
And the laughter of bobolinks. 

'^ A breath from the fields ! ". . . 

I catch 
A view of the leafy thatch 

That waves on the meadow's marge. 
I roam in the shadows o^ trees 
Like those in Hesperides ! 

And I pluck from the branches the large 
White beautiful apple-sprays. 
Till the pain in my heart allays. 

'' A breath from the fields ! ''. . . 

Thank God 
For the friend who kneeled on the sod 

To gather such glory for me ! 
The blossoms shall fade ; but depart 
Shall they never from out of my heart. 

There, forever, their beauty shall be. 
Like the blossoms that gladden the eyes 
Of the dwellers in Paradise. 



8i 



DafFodils 



Within the winding woodland aisles 

Which stately crown our northward hills, 
A myriad wilding daffodils 

Bloom gladly where the sunbeam smiles. 

How they in such unwonted earth 

Found home and blossomed, none may 

know ; 
But buds of a more beauteous glow 

Ne'er, out of poet's brain, had birth. 

Anigh their vernal, mossy bed 

The pine stands whispering to the spruce; 

The striped squirrel — gay recluse ! — 
Swings in the branches overhead. 

Around their prize the wondering bees. 
To such soft sweetness all unused, 
Buzzingly gather till infused 

With honey of Hesperides ! 

Thither the Naiads also come; 
Thither the fairies fly in haste : 
Never more humble courtiers graced 

A Beauty's court in Christendom. 



82 



Daffodils 



Even the lady-ferns and sedges. 
Turning in sweet surprise to greet 
The beauty nestling at their feet. 

Give the pale strangers welcome pledges. 

Thither I, too, my steps retrace. 
Seeking the inspiration there ; 
Meeting within that charmed air 

A benediction face to face. 



83 



Body and Spirit 



The fair October sky is clear. 

The summer haze has fled ; 
The glory of the woods is near. 

The maple's leaves are red. 

The cloudless morning sun is mild. 

The fern its fragrance yields. 
^* Come out into the woods, my child. 

Come out into the fields ! ' ' 

'T is thus I hear my mother speak, — 

My mother. Nature dear; 
And while her breezes fan my cheek 

I linger still to hear. 

*' These perfect days were never meant 

For toil of hand or brain," — 
But made to roam the continent. 

Or sail the misty main. 

''The world is too much with us," — Yea, 

For all men but a few 
Earth's toil and strain from day to day 

Is life's sole residue ! 



84 



Body and Spirit 



God ! for what the sun and sky ? 
For what the leafy wood? 

Shall men forever live and die. 
And call the worse the good ? 

But ah ! — myself — myself am bound 
Within the city 's moil ! 

1 cannot break, myself, the round 

Of endless daily toil ! 

In vain the crimson sumach rears 

For me its plumes of red. 
And while! toil, — 'mid blinding tears. 

The aster's gold is dead ! 

Ah well ! my mind is still my own ; 

My heart no fetters gyve : 
My soul is monarch of a throne 

Which through all years shall thrive. 

To toil my body Fate may urge, — 

But unconfined and free 
My spirit roams the mountain's verge. 

And sails the sun-lit sea. 



8s 



Mystic River 



O MixiATURE river ! winding tree 
Through widening meadows to wider sea, 
Beautiful, beautiful art thou to me ! 

Men look on thy narrow wave, and 

laugh ! . . . 
Little they know of the cup I quaff ! 
And what carest thou for their idle chaif ! 

Thou art narrow, and sluggish, and muddy- 
oft. 
And thy margin is oozy, and low, and soft ; 
It is no wonder that men have scoifed : 

For men are thoughtless, through and 

through ; 
And men are idle and sluggish too. 
And they laugh at themselves when they 



Thou art wider at times — when the upward 

tide 
Brings a torrent of brine from the ocean's 

side, 
And seaweed and kelp on thy current glide. 



86 



Mystic River 



Then pleasure-barks on thy surface float ; 
And fair lips wreathe into joyous note 
While fair hands hasten each onward boat. 

Thou art wider still — when the tide comes in 
With a rush and a roar from the sea, and a 

din 
Like that on the beach when the storms 

begin. 

Then over thy wave the sea-gull dips. 

And screams to his fellows, while slowly 

drips 
The salt sea-spray from his pinions' tips ! 

And thou takest thy birth in lakes that are 

large. 
With villages fair on their prosperous 

marge, — 
And yet almost as lone as when swept by 

the barge 

Of the Indian hunters now lying asleep 
Where the willow bends low and the larches 

weep 
On the westering slopes of Walnut steep ; — 



87 



Mystic River 



In lakes that are quiet and calm and still. 
Where the bobolink's laugh and the mavis' 

trill 
Re-echo o'er forest and meadow and hill. 

But river ! if thou in thy breadth w^ert as 

great 
As the Stream of the South where it pours 

through the gate 
Of golden Brazil, and runs separate 

For leagues in the brine, ever fresh, ever 

pure; 
If thou in precipitous depths didst endure 
Dark caverns and cliiFs such as oceans immure ; 

If thou in the circling embrace of thy banks 
Held gardens by hundreds, and castles in 

ranks. 
And vineyards like those in the land of the 

Francs ; 

If thou with Euphrates and Gihon didst run 
By the Garden of God, and didst mirror the 

sun 
As when first over Eden the dawn had 

begun ; — 



88 



Mystic River 



Ev'n then thou couldst never peace richer 

impart. 
Nor ever be dearer, O stream, in my heart. 
Than thou in thy slumber and sluggishness 

art ! 

For sacred to me, doubly, trebly, thy tide. 
For the friends now^ far- sundered and scat- 
tered world-w^ide 
With whom in my youth I have vv^alked by 
thy side ! 



89 



In a Country Burial-Ground 

I LINGERED in the wayside home of rest. 
Enchanted by the dream of peace it wore. 
'^ G. L. — Eighteen ": the marble told no 

more 
Which marked the turf-mound where I stood 

a guest. 
A hundred times, perchance, the robin's nest 
Has swung above his dust, while, o'er and 



o'er. 



The timothy and sorrel locked the door 
Which shuts him safe within his chamber 
blest. 

Dear sleeper ! was it ruthless War's alarm — 
Its demon sacrifice — which in thine hour 
Of blithesome strength compelled thee to 

the tomb ? 
Or deed of love to save another's harm? 
Thou answerest not, contented with thy 

bower 
And ever wearing youth's transcendent 

bloom. 



90 



Sunrise in Codman Park 

[DORCHESTER, MASSACHUSETTS.] 

From hill- top circled by the sleeping town 
I seaward gaze where gleams the early day. 
The mists still clothe the valley-lands in gray. 
But harbor islands wear a gem-set crown. 
Southward, the Blue Hill summits dofF their 

frown. 
Reflecting eagerly each new-born ray ; 
While through the elms the robin to the jay 
His gauntlet of ecstatic song throws down. 

For me alone is this exalting bliss ? 

For me alone these fugue-resounding walls 

Which flush with beryl and with sapphire 

blaze : 
O sluggard souls, ye know not w^hat ye miss 
Who bring not sorrow to these sunrise-halls 
To find it vanish in these notes of praise. 



91 



To My Old Wheel 

Thousands of miles of richness ! lofty joy 

Beyond what noblest verse might hope to 
swell ! — 

Ungrateful, then, should I not strive to tell 

The benediction of thy rare employ. 

Through thee, Atlantic's edge hath been my 
toy; 

Through thee, my heart hath danced in field 
and fell ; 

Through thee, unnumbered draughts at Beth- 
lehem 's well 

Have sins assuaged and banished world's 
annoy. 

Through thee, the hills their purple haze 

have lent ; 
Voices of bobolinks have been the choir 
Which tuned the grottoes where I found a 

shrine ; 
Hemlock and larch have swung my studious 

tent; 
Morning and eve have lit my sacred fire ; 
Paphos, the Muses, and God Pan were mine. 



The Earth at Play 



Acres oi daisies, — buttercups between, — 
And over them the sunny Sunday sky ! 
Daisies as thick as stalks in fields of rye ; 
More buttercups than eyes before had seen 
Though love had measured tenfold ; spires 

of green 
The gowans gay uptossing, — straight, awry, 

'erswung, upsoaring, — endless to the eye ; 
The yellow crow^foot hordes enmeshed serene. 

1 think if I could count those blooms afield. 
Which yesterday the wanton breeze o'er- 

swept 
In billows white, green, golden, I could say 
How many love-lights children's faces yield 
When kisses greet them after they have slept. 
And they go out to join the earth at play. 



93 



Les Camarades 



I HEAR him calling — I must go awhile. 
For compact we have made most true and 

strict. 
When either hails, then ere the sun has nicked 
Ten seconds on the oak-top's soaring dial. 
The other — faithful in the loyal style 
Of souls whose confidence was never tricked 
By comrades proving dull or derelict — 
Must answer through the woodland's leafy 

aisle. 

Then shut, my Shakespeare, — Plato, you 

may wait ; 
My cornfield, sun and rain shall care for you ; 
Sad world, an hour I leave you to your plight ! 
Ceaseless the cark of Body, Mind, and State, 
While love's sweet fellowships are far and 

few. 
Recalls — I hasten. ''Here's Bob White T'' 

''Bob Whiter' 



94 



In Suburban Woods 

How SIFTS the sunlight through these oaks 

outspread ! 
And through their boughs what flash of 

crimson wings ! 
Each cup and fern a fragrant censer swings. 
Earth's loveliness to me is daily bread. 
At this rich board I bow my grateful head. 
And eat and drink, the while my bosom 

sings, — 
Forgetting, for an hour, the thousand stings 
Of yonder city — Palace of the Dead ! 

At every living tomb, or South or North, 
The spirit, hearkening, heareth Nature 

chide : — 
^* O souls of men, to Beauty why so slow ! 
Day's realm awaits you! Lazarus, come 

forth!" 
And then, to them that stand the grave 

beside : — 
*' Unbind their cerements ! Loose, and let 

them go." 



95 



So Like the Spring She Stands 

[written of my daughter.] 

Again we wander — she, my soul's delight. 
And I, her dear companion, lover, friend — 
To hill-tops where the elms and maples send 
Their first faint greenness through the land- 
scape bright. 
The flicker calls us to pursue his flight ; 
The robin welcomes us to join the trend 
Of lavish life upspringing, and to spend 
Improvidently on the ear and sight. 



Once more, as when she plunged her infant 
hands 

In wealth of Western prairies, — years be- 
tween, — 

We search and sing and know life still is 
sweet. 

Yet now, dear girl ! so like the Spring she 
stands. 

To gaze upon her fairness of eighteen 

My eye forsakes the wind-flower at my feet. 



96 



Enchanted Ground 



I AM a Parsee. Thee I praise, O Sun ! 

Squirrel nor thrush is earlier astir 

Than I when, bursting through the upland 
fir, 

I mount some steep to hail new Dawn begun. 

And when the showery west, all diamond- 
spun. 

Is pied with flame as dies day's messenger, 

I gaze still rapt, — Light 's loyal worshiper, — 

And hymn the hymns of priests in Babylon. 

Omar ! the earth was all enchanted ground 
To thee who sold thy rosary for wine — 
The wine of Beauty, filling Nature's cup. 
Thy temple's arch the sky alone could 

bound. 
Scaling its walls, — no narrower worship 

mine, — 
To heaven each day I climb exultant up. 



97 



Sonata of the Dragon-fly 

[The dragon-fly flew in at my open oflice-window 
in Boston 07te day in summer, a few moments 
after the receipt by me of a letter from a friend 
at Vineyard Haven. In the letter the writer 
of the same, by a strange coincidence, playfully 
wished himself some winged creature in order 
that he might fly in at my city window and 
whisper in my ear the delights of his rural 
and seaside home! — iS'jS?^ 

I COME, I come from distant shores ; — 
From where the wide Atlantic roars 

Around my island home; 
Where pebbly strands unbroken lie. 
Ringed round with spray-cloud mystery. 

Ringed round with silvery foam ! 

I come from where the trembling pine 
Chants chorus to the heaving brine. 

Chants sonnets to the sea ; 
From where the myriad-leaved elm. 
On brink of wide Neptunian realm. 

Breathes soulful melody. 

I come from meadowy retreats. 
Where violets and marguerites 
The livelong day repose; 



98 



Sonata of the Dragon-fly 

Where jauntily the golden-rod 
And tufted stalks of asters nod. 

Mingled with sweet-brier rose. 

I come from where the rippling brook 
Flows free through many a sylvan nook. 

Then leaps into the sun ; 
Where ferns and grasses guard the brink 
Where butterflies descend to drink. 

Their glad life just begun. 

I come from where the oriole's nest 
Hangs hidden beyond the eager quest 

Of hawk or schoolboy hand; 
From where the yellow-bird's golden hue 
Flits by with a flash across the blue 

Of the high arch overspanned. 

I come from where at eventide 
The stars in majestic beauty glide. 

Outvying Arabia's days; 
Where nightly the fire-fly's delicate lamp 
Gleams bright on the background cold and 
damp 

Of the furry, tasseled maize. 



99 



Sonata of the Dragon-fly 

I come from where no thirst of man 
Encircles the earth with rule and span. 

Or measures the soul with a gauge : 
From where the rustic may worship God, 
And fear no threatening beck or nod 

In childhood, youth, or age. 

I come, I come from distant shores ; — 
From where the wide Atlantic roars 

Around my island home ; 
Where pebbly strands unbroken lie. 
Ringed round with spray-cloud mystery. 

Ringed round with silvery foam ! 



100 



Forelooking 



Walnut mil, Mid-Summer^ ^^79- 

I SIT beside my window here. 

And dream away the day. 
The air is calm, the sky is clear, — 

And yonder, down the Bay, 

i\long the silvery rim of light 
Which marks the Ocean's edge. 

Fair far-off slanting wings of white 
Sail slow beyond the ledge ; — 

Beyond the ledge of towering rocks 
Which mark the heights of Lynn ; — 

Beyond to where the Equinox 
Shall howl with awflil din. 

Oh stay at home, ye stately ships ! 

Oh stay at home as I ! 
Nor sail to meet but sure eclipse 

Beneath an angry sky ! 

The wandering thought, the impatient heart. 
The discontented soul. 



lOI 



Forelooking 



At best can know of life but part. 
And not the rounded whole. 

But ah ! ye cannot stay ! — e 'en now 

Your sails are seaward set : 
E'en now above your burdened bow 

The fluttering sea-gulls fret. 

And soon I too must hence away. 

To skirt uncharted shores ! 
Already in my ears the spray 

Of ocean conflict roars. 

'T is well ! 't is well, ye stately ships ! 

Ye were not made for calm ! 
Your keels were laid to bear to lips 

That hunger. Eastern balm. 

'T is well no port of listless peace 
Enshields your slothful sail : 

The ship that gains the Golden Fleece 
Must dare the Euxine gale. 

'T is well, O heart, no life of ease 
Before thee opens fair ! 



I02 



Forelooking 



That perfect life would fail to please 
Which breathed but softer air. 

'T is not when zephyrs kindly blow. 

And calmly, sweetly steal; 
When waters musically flow. 

And laugh along the keel ; 

'T is in the dashing of life's wave. 

And in the sudden shock ; 
'T is when the soul, though stout and brave. 

Is ground as on the rock. 

That life's objective port is neared. 

Its noblest courses run. 
And souls of men the straightest steered 

To Isles of inward Sun. 



103 



I Feel That I Know Her 

1876. 

I FEEL that I know her — we smile as we 

meet; 
We pass every day in the very same street, — 
She hurrying on — heaven only knows where. 
And I in pursuit of ambitions of air. 

But who she may be, or the place o^ her 

home. 
Or why through the city forced daily to 

roam. 
Or married or single, a maiden or mother, 
I 'm sure I don't know, any more than 

another. 

Her eyes are a tender and beautiful blue; 
Her hair is the glossiest, goldenest hue ; 
Her cheeks are as red as the roses in blow, — 
And her heart is the garden, I feel, where 
they grow. 

We never have spoken — we smile and go 

by; 
No greeting we utter — except with the eye : 



104 



/ Feel that I Know Her 

Thank God she is modest, retiring, and 

true ! — 
And I am as modest and innocent too. 

Full often I wonder her name and her 
station ; 

I Ve known from the first she is foreign by 
nation. 

Her language — ah me ! would that lan- 
guage were mine ! — 

The land oi her birth is the land of the 
Rhine. 

O Germany ! home o^ sweet music and 

song ! 
My feet for thy vine-covered terraces 

long ! 
With her for a guide through thy sun-purpled 

air. 
How gladly my heart would go wandering 

there ! 

Some castle enthroned in thy hills there 

must be 
That shelter would furnish for her and for 

me ! 



05 



/ Feel that I Know Her 

Some crag overhanging some vine-embowered 

vale. 
Where beauty might bloom, and w^here love 

would not fail ! 

Ah me ! such a spot it were pleasant to 

see; 
And pleasanter far in its secret to be ! . . . 
But flee — flee ! ye castles, and day-dreams 

so fair ! 
'T is true ye are castles — but castles in air. 

To-morrow I '11 meet her again; and her 
smile 

Will lighten life's roadway for many a mile. 

That face in my dream, were life's journey- 
ing done. 

Would lumine the pathway that leads to the 
sun ! 

Ah well ! and that day — it will come at the 

last. 
Our eyes will be dull, and our smiles will 

have passed. 
And never, perhaps, will our voices be heard. 
Nor ever our souls by those accents be stirred. 



106 



/ Feel that I Know Her 

Perchance in the streets that are ntgh to the 

Throne, 
Where the heart will have voice, though the 

tongue be unknown. 
We each will discern who the other may 

be,— 
I better know her, and she better know me. 



107 



Sweetest Songs Are Never Sung 



The sweetest songs are never sung, - — 

So the Poets say. 
The tenderest chords are never strung; 
The merriest bells are never rung. 

Well-a-day ! Well-a-day ! 
Let the Poets have their v^ay ! 
Let them have their v^ay ! — 
All that sighing Minstrels sing can never 
me dismay. 
/ can hear sw^eet bells go pealing — pealing 

joyously to-day ! 
/ can hear their silvery pealing — hear their 
merry roundelay ! 

II 

The fairest pearls are never found, — 

So Professors say. 
The cheeriest trumpets never sound; 
The jauntiest vessels go aground. 

Well-a-day ! Well-a-day ! 
Let Professors have their way ! 

io8 



Sweetest Songs are Never Sung 

Let them have their way ! — 
All that dull Professors dream can never 
me dismay ! 
/ can see stanch ships go sailing — sailing 

ever proudly by ! 
/ can see tall masts and rigging outlined 
grandly against the sky ! 

Ill 

The saintliest prayer is never said, — 

So the Preachers say. 
The daintiest board is never spread ; 
The loveliest maid is never wed. 

Well-a-day ! Well-a-day ! 
Let the Preachers have their way ! 
Let them have their way ! — 
All that dullard Parsons dream can never 
me dismay ! 
I myself perchance know somewhat of the 

lights along the shore; 
I myself am soon to wed that loveliest 
maiden they deplore ! 

1880. 



109 



"When Young Hearts Love" 

Bright are earth's days, and glad earth's 
years. 
When young hearts love ! 
Many are joys, and few are fears. 
When young hearts love ! 
Nor aught the wide earth round. 
Unto its farthest bound. 
May equal the intense 
Unswerving vehemence 
Of faith, of truth, of innocence, of tears. 
When young hearts love ! 

Glad are the songs the angels sing. 
In realms above ! 
Merry the mock-bird's caroling, 
In southern grove ! 
But ne'er may seraph chant 
The Song of Covenant 

That bindeth twain in one. 
Or bird of southern sun 
Repeat the soul's glad triumphing. 
When young hearts love ! 



lO 



A Cane from Gethsemane 

A SIMPLE cane is here, — a pilgrim staff: 

Yet on its polished face. 
In quaintly graven Hebrew paragraph, 

A sacred name I trace. 

'' Gethsemane. — Mount Olivet.'' The 
phrase 
Bespeaks the favored earth 
Where, ages since, — in unremembered 
days, — 
Its sacred tree had birth. 

A traveler brought it — fragrant wdth the air 

Of that clear Syrian sky. 
*^Here, friend," he said, *^the staff is 
yours ; you care 

For such things more than I." 

I hold it in my hand, as here I sit. 

And musing close my eye ; 
And far and fast doth subtle Fancy flit. 

Imagination fly. 

Beneath the swaying bough from which was 
plucked 
The olive cane I hold. 



1 1 1 



A Cane from Gethsemane 

Dark Hebrew boys have played, and, play- 
ing, sucked 
Its fruit times manifold. 

In shorn Gethsemane, even to this day. 

Is show^n the grotto w^ild 
Where Abraham prepared the wood to slay 

Isaac his first-born child. 

Here David, harp in hand, from yonder hills 

His native Bethlehem nigh. 
Oft wandered with his sheep, the rippling 
rills 

And quiet waters by. 

And rested, sweeping with his hand the 
strings 

Melodious with praise, — 
Laying his head upon these rootlets' rings. 

Lit by the sun's last rays ! 

Here Solomon had come, with timbrels, 
flutes. 

And cymbals clashing load ; 
With solemn sackbuts, fifes, and silvery lutes. 

In royal garments proud ; 



I 12 



A Cane from Gethsemane 

With damsels rich in dyes from Tyrian 
shore ; 

Playing at games of chance ; 
Laughing to see upon the leafy floor 

The Jewish maidens dance. 

Here Philip's son, great Alexander, came. 

His hands with slaughter wet. 
And bowed himself before the jeweled flame 

Of priestly coronet. 

The god of Macedon was Mars the Red, 

His empire on increase : 
The God of Shiloh's olives, overhead. 

Here gently whispered, *^ Peace ! " 

Here Jesus, Joseph's son, a mightier king. 
Weighed down with woes of men. 

Came praying he perchance their lives might 
bring 
To God and heaven again. 

Here, too, while his disciples slept, he sweat 

As it were drops of blood ; — 
His brow, in agony, already wet 

With Friday's crimson flood. 



113 



A Cane from Gethsemane 

And here the angel came, in raiment white. 

To strengthen him and bless. 
Making a Bethel of the darksome night. 

And joy of his distress. 

Here Judas, jeering, brought the priestly 
crowd 

With lanterns, swords, and staves, — 
His thirty silver pieces jingling loud 

And murmuring ^* Paupers' graves ! " 

Here Titus came ! and with his army vast 

Uprooted every tree. 
Thy glory then, Jerusalem, was past ! 

And thine, Gethsemane ! 

But ere that fatal hour, the cane I hold 

Was plucked from off its tree. 
And down through monkish cloisters dim 
and old 

At last has come to me. 

This very bough, perhaps, its portion gave 

For Abraham's altar-fire. 
When sadly building — deeming nought could 
save — 

His first-born's funeral-pyre. 



1 1 



A Cane from Gethsemane 

This very bough — who knows ? — the 
bough may be 

That shehered David's lambs; 
Beneath which Solomon, the Wise, in glee 

Made proverb- epigrams ; 

That Alexander bowed beneath ; that he 
Of Nazareth sought for prayer; 

That angels' pinions brushed ; that treachery 
Sought out and made a snare ! . . . 

O sacred bough ! from thy long history 

Some lesson I would learn ! 
Would that from thee some heavenly mystery 

Within my soul might burn ! 



115 



The Great 



Around me often, when the twilight fades. 
Come figures giant-brained, heroic-hearted ; 
In ghostly vigil rise the Great Departed, — 

Of earth's most valiant-souled the deathless 
shades. 

They stand upon a background glory-walled. 
Returned a little from the fields Elysian. 
As saw the Tuscan in subhmest vision. 

So see I these — and stand enrapt, enthralled. 

They move before me with majestic tread. 
Alive again ! for me anew-created ; 
In mind and figure rehabilitated. 

Though gone from earth the great are never 
dead. 

The Great? Who are the Great? From 
distant cHmes, 
From years that mold with age and tor- 
ture 's wailing. 
Within my ken a weary host come sail- 
ing, — 
The grave gives up old ^'heroes" of old 
times. 



ii6 



The Great 



Eastward with pomp, from Macedonia's 
gate. 
Seeking what Asia to his lust might pander, 
I see the drunken glutton, Alexander, 

Cruel and vicious, gain his laurel, ^' Great." 

Thin-visaged, thundering at earth's western 
door, 
I see great Julius in Transalpine valleys. 
How flee the Gauls at his majestic 
sallies ! 
How faint they at the fearless front he 
wore ! 

Men hail him as he heads his cavalcade, — 
*^ O Caesar! where the warrior that can 

match you ! ' ' 
But, shivering at the base of Pompey's 
statue, 
I see the rent the envious Casca made. 

Fighter of battles, not in cause of Right, 
But to his kingdom to add lands and 

oceans, 
Peter of Russia — fertile in high notions. 

Fertile in baseness — ranges into sight. 



117 



The Great 



Near him, great Frederick, Prussia's lofty 
man. 
Great in his will-power — great in his 

excesses ! 
Little in all that elevates and blesses ; 
Breaker of treaties, liar and charlatan. 

The slaughterer of hordes unveils his face — 
Napoleon, the dazzling and tremendous ! 
What Power, what Progress, did his 
blood-reign lend us ? 

A ruined country, an impoverished race ! 

Thus sadly come they — from years old and 
late — 
A wan, deluded army, vulture-haunted. 
The host a world's mad dream has hero- 
vaunted. 
Playing their life-part out — ^*the brave," 
'Uhe Great." 

Alas ! how little in them all we see. 

Of what we call the gracious, the diviner ! 
Than all this brutehood is there nothing 
finer ? 

Oh, turn we where sublimity may be ! 



i8 



The Great 



Yea, hither, hither come, O Persian Saint, 
O Buddha of Nepaul, O Syrian Jesus ! 
No longer deeds of blood and conflict 
please us ; 
For heights o^ soul — for love — our spirits 
faint : 

For those who from life's discords brought a 
tone 
Of richest truth and harmony to greet 

us ; — 
Pythagoras, Isaiah, Epictetus, 
Saviours in every^ era, every zone ; 

For Seneca, Contentment's messenger; 

For Socrates, of all souls lofty, breezy ; 

The Nature-lover, Francis of Assizi ; 
Aurelius, the inward ponderer; 

The early scientists of Nile and Greece, 
Our own rare searchers, Humboldt, 

Darwin, Spencer. . . . 
Above them all there waves the golden 
censer 
Whose fragrance stills life's harshnesses to 
peace. 



119 



The Great 



Yea, those are mortal ; these, immortal ones. 
The world's unselfish, its true blessing- 

bringers. 
Its painters, sculptors, freedom-lovers, 
singers. 
Its Shakespeares, Burnses, Lowells, Emer- 
sons. 

And so of all the myriad ^^ nameless " men. 
The faithful women, lovers of self-giving. 
Who lived for something higher than mere 
living. 

And, losing, have yet doubly gained again ! 

These are the heroes men to-day adore. 
These are the valiant ones above all story ; 
This is the pathway to the modern glory 

Which down the years with added power 
shall pour : 

The Greatness that the world shall recognize 
In conquest over all its pain and sinning, — 
The Love which was not at earth's far 
beginning. 

But now is here, and saves and sanctifies. 



I 20 



Lewis G. Janes 



1844-1901 

Read at the Memorial Service at the Studio 
HoMse^ Cambridge^ September 8, igoi. 

Not waiting for the evening's shades to 

swell. 

Sometimes at noon she rings her curfew- 
bell— 

The solveless Mother of whose ^^ hours" 
we prate. 

Though in her years is neither soon nor late. 

But though his dust lies now amid the 
flowers. 

His thought persists — his living words are 
ours ! 

His living words are ours, and show the way 
To Freedom and to earth's more glorious 

day; 
His potent words — with manly impulse 

fraught. 
And pointing to the ever-widening Ought ! 
His solvent words — with Nature's meaning 

rife. 
And throbbing with the true Eternal life. 



121 



Lewis G. Janes 



He asked the universe for what it had. 
And held its tenure to be good, not bad. 
In ferns and fauna he read things To Be ; 
The stars held strains of secret minstrelsy. 
He loved her much, and Nature did not 

mock. 
But fed him manna even from the rock. 

But higher yet he sought his loftier theme. 
And roved in earth's best groves of Academe. 
The wisdom of the Past he made his own — 
Whatever man had dreamed, or guessed, or 

known. 
And with the scholar's grace and sage's 

art 
Laid bare its promise for the human heart. 

Around his board he gathered with delight 
The dusky face with Eastern radiance bright. 
The traveled seer from Europe's groaning 

lands. 
The Islander outstretching hopeful hands ; 
And from the lips of each and all he 

heard 
The world's one searching, all-embracing 

Word. 



1 22 



Lewis G. Janes 



That Word was Freedom ! and he sought to 

trace 
How freedom might be w^on for all the 

race. 
For him no freedom was while some were 

bound ; 
Freedom meant Freedom all the w^orld 

around. 
So, foremost still, his Word to us comes 

down : 
*' Freedom for all men, white or black or 

brown." 

And not alone his living word was high : 
His word w^as lofty when he came to die. 
He spoke of beauty, whispered of the light. 
And full of courage entered on the Night, 
Content to know whatever lay before 
Would be in line with Nature's finest store. 

His dying word: ''Still beauty reigns on 

earth — 
Let beauty also in the soul have birth ! ' ' 
His dying word — so like his own rich hfe. 
That sought the noble, shunned the needless 

strife. 



123 



Lewis G. Janes 



And by his public voice and private pen 
Brought strength and beauty to the Hves of 
men ! 

O steadfast soul ! in w^hatsoever star 
Or realm of ether thou to-day afar 
Dost wander, — or unseen beside us stand,-^- 
The world still hears thine accents of com- 
mand ; 
And as a ripple widens o'er the sea. 
So yet shall spread thy faithful ministry. 



I 24 



The Schoolmaster's Dream 

Weary with toil at desk and board and 

book. 
Gladly he dropped the crayon in its nook ; 
But forcing to his lips a kindly smile. 
And touching with soft hand his bell the 

while. 
Said cheerfully, ^^The hour to close is nigh: 
The setting sun drops down the western 

sky. 
To-morrow, with new ease, will come ne\\^ 

strength ; 
We reach, perchance, untiring days at 

length!'' 
Then rang again, and noting the sweet 

grace 
And eagerness that lit each fair young face. 
Dismissed them all into the evening air 
With fervent blessing and an inward prayer. 

The master's soul was sorrowful with 

doubt — 
He whose triumphant faith should be so 

stout. 
His pupils were so sluggish in the arts ! 
They had such feverish and impatient hearts ! 



125 



The Schoolmaster's Dream 

^^ O soul!" he said, ^^thy toil meets no 

return. 
Life's cheeriest fires to blackened embers 

burn. 
No adequate return," again he said. 
And on the desk before him leaned his 

head. 
The western windows opened to the blue ; 
The sinking sun sent slanting shadow^s 

through : 
He saw it not, nor heard the droning 

flies, — 
But, lulled by Nature's opiate, closed his 

eyes. 

He sees nor hears — his soul's tired pinions 

sweep 
The shadowy vale of Death's twin-brother. 

Sleep. 
All day, sad voices, sounding in his ear. 
Had filled his spirit with a nameless fear. 
Surely no followers, in this sunless land. 
Would jeer and beckon him on every hand ! 
But ah ! ev'n here, — though with no taunt 

or shout, — 
A myriad spirits thronged him round about ; 



I 26 



T^he Schoolmaster^ s Dream 

And with a soothing sound, as of a wdnd 
Low-breathing through the fragrant groves 

of Ind, 
A single angel — not o{ gloom, but light — 
Said tenderly, ^^ O King, thy wrongs 

recite ! " 

^^ Alas ! " the master said, ^^no King am 

I! — 
Even the crown of laurel-leaves is dry 
Which in my younger years my sister wove. 
Because at college, among all who strove, 
I, only, won, and bore away the prize ! ' * 
'^ Nay," said the angel, *' principalities. 
States, empires, kingdoms, — these all pass 

away. 
Forgotten ev^en in an earthly day. 
The crown immortal, the enduring throne, — 
These, to be steadfast, m.ust be like thine 

own ! 
He who the light to one dark soul shall 

bring. 
Among the sons of men is more than King. 

*^ No word thou utterest, or good or ill. 
But sounds forever, — wild or soft or shrill, — 



127 



T^he Schoolmaster^ s Dream 

Fast held within the vibrant air's embrace. 
If words of thine shall brighten one sad 

face. 
Thine accents ease a brother's heavy load. 
Thy daily task reveal where Truth is 

strowed. 
Then rest content ! for there shall come a 

year 
(And soon shall come) when back into thine 

ear 
With ten-fold power thy words, or ill or 

good. 
Shall speed with force that may not be with- 
stood. 
Then happy thou, if in thine ear shall ring 
Words that shall crown thee servant, — 

helper, — king ! ' ' 

The master smiled — his face with peace 

was lit 
Where lately pain had overshadowed it. 
** But, sympathy!" he cried. ''Sweet 

spirit, stay ! 
Fain would I have some token by the way. 
Daily I toil, nor meet a single smile 
To ease the burden of one lonely mile ! " 



128 



T^he Schoolmaster' s Dream 

^* Awake ! " the angel answered, — *'thou 

art blind." 
He raised his head. '^ Please, sir, we stayed 

behind, — 
You fell asleep, — you would not wake for 

us!" 
(Two little-ones beside his knee spoke thus.) 
** You love us, and try hard, — we know 

you do ; 
And we have brought this little flower for 

you!" 



129 



Heart of Youth 



A NOONTIDE sun, in early summer-time ; 
Low, billowy summits, in their verdant 

prime. 
Bounding a valley wide and fair and still : 
And in the midst, the slopes of Walnut 

Hill! 

On all the northern hand, — far-reaching, 

gray, — 
The heights of Winchester, in rude array ; 
And trending east, where lakes like sapphires 

burn. 
The Fells of Middlesex, embowered in fern. 
Still east, the sea ! a silvery line and thin. 
Hedged by the rocky heights of distant 

Lynn ; 
And near at hand, slow-winding, placid, 

blue, — 
Along whose banks once Paul Revere flew, — 
The Mystic's narrow tide — expanding soon 
Into a crystal mere, a broad lagoon. 
Reflecting far, from morn till evening hour. 
Gray Bunker's lofty, sun-illumined tower. 



130 



Heart of Youth 



Southward, the city — dreary desert 

vast ! . . . 
Haste thee, my verse ! beware the woe ! fly 

fast ! 
Far, far beyond, see Milton's purple hills. 
The blue-domed range which every bosom 

thrills ; 
And nearer, — where the marbles hide from 

view 
The ashes of a Sumner and Ballou, — 
Fair i\uburn ! circled by a hundred farms. 
And clasped in sluggish Charles's sinuous 

arms. 
Westward, the fertile fields of Alewife 

Brook, 
Laughing with harvests ripening for the 

hook, - — 
Flecked by the shadows of vast clouds that 

float 
Aimless as shipwrecked sails on seas remote, — 
Edged by low mountains, shimmering in the 

sun. 
The emerald Heights, far-famed, of Arling- 
ton ! 
Enchanted hills, which, when the day is 

past. 



31 



Heart of Youth 



Are tipt with glory such as Nebo cast 
When angels hastened o'er its darkening 

crest. 
Bearing the Hebrew prophet to his rest ! 

II 

Northward and eastward from this favored 

scene, — 
This Walnut Hill, this college - crowned 

demesne, — 
Beyond the river flowing at its feet. 
Beyond the stir of village pier and street. 
There winds a road through rarest sylvan 

ways. 
The ever new delight of summer days. 
Here darkling thickets, densely green, 

abide. 
Hazel, and oak, and birch, on either side, — 
Where the brown partridge unseen whirrs, 

and where 
Gray squirrels lurk, and rabbits have their 

lair. 
Here blooms the barberry, in yellow sprays. 
Miles long ! and here, through all the 

summer days. 



132 



Heart of Touth 



The sweet wild rose and fragrant wilding 

phlox 
Vie with the garden pinks and hollyhocks 
Which shall be crowned the fairer ! And 

the prize 
No single wanderer, passing with pleased 

eyes. 
Withholds from Nature's wilding ones, here 

strowed 
Luxuriantly. 

. . . Along this sunny road 

Two friends were walking at the noon of 

day; 
And both were thoughtful, though they both 

were gay. 
They both were thoughtful; but the suromer 

air. 
The sunshine through the branches here and 

there. 
The laughing bobolink, the cawing crow. 
The blue above, the emerald below. 
Made life that hour so beautiful a dream. 
That rustling leaf nor onward murmuring 

stream 
Could less of sorrow feel, or wild despair. 
Than these companions idly wandering 

there. 



33 



Heart of Youth 



For both were young ! and in the soul 
of each 
Were aspirations deeper than all speech : 
Ambitions for the honor which the world 
Stands ready to inscribe on flags unfurled 
In noble causes ; — aspirations, too. 
That honor granted should be honor due. 

They dreamed of sacred fire withheld by 
Gods : 
They knew of Caucasus, and of the odds 
Prometheus wrestled with, and all his pain ; 
And yet they dared it all, and more, again ; 
And with the vultures' whirr still sounding 

nigh. 
They dared to rest their ladder on the sky. 

Upon the shore of Time they would not 

sit. 
The Ocean was before ! and they were knit 
Unto a firm resolve, by faith upheld 
To walk the waters ! \^ they boiled and 

welled. 
The way would be more difficult; if calm. 
The port were sooner reached — the Isles 

of Palm. 



134 



Heart of Touth 



Nor did they hesitate to point their feet 
To where life's ocean and horizon meet. 

They knew — yet were not daunted — 

wild with spray 
The vengeful tempest would assail their way. 
They knew men's bones lay bleaching in 

the sand ; 
They saw the carcasses tossed high on land 
Of earnest voyagers who yesterday 
Had left the beach as buoyantly as they. 
But these ("they said) had sailed without a 

chart : 
Or failed to use it : and the human heart. 
By passion ballasted, to escape the brine 
A special port must own, and chart divine. 



Ill 

With this they turned into a narrow lane. 
Half hidden in the leafy underbrush ; 
A fragrant avenue, whose sacred hush 
Was broken by the rumble of no wheel. 
No whirl of dust, no echo but the peal 
Of sporting bobolinks ; and where the moss 
A soft rich tapestry spread wide across ; 



"^y^ 



Heart of Youth 



And all along, as far as eye could reach. 
The birch and hazel boughs and silver 

beech 
Threw grateful shade. 

" This winding road," said one, 
** Will guide us to the mountain- top. The 

sun. 
Which hitherto hath flamed upon our way 
With furious heat, will here its fury stay. 
And cooling breezes now will fan our cheek. 
The road is sure : I heard my father speak 
But yesterday of climbing this same path." 

The other lingered. '* Greater beauty 

hath 
The wilding thicket for my mood," said he. 
** Behold ! a rod beyond this sumach-tree 
Sharply the mountain's base begins to rise. 
Why toil we on ! ' Reward of high 

emprise ' 
Is here at hand ! Behold ! the forest floor 
Is thick with violets ! And here a door 
Between the maple - trunks seems opening 

wide. 
Inviting us to enter. In ! " he cried. 



136 



Heart of Youth 



And caught his comrade's arm, and sought 
To lure him. 

But his zeal availed him naught. 

^^ One moment, brother mine!" his 

comrade said. 
^^We started out, the mountain's highest 

head 
Intent to reach. Shall we be baffled here. 
By violets ? And yonder buds, I fear. 
Are not the violets your haste has thought. 
Those purple petals, delicately wrought. 
With subtle odor, poisonous, are filled. 
The deadly nightshade, if your eyes were 

skilled. 
You would declare them ! And your open 

door 
Is barred with stone and briar. The forest 

floor 
To which with sudden frenzy you would 

haste. 
Look you, is marshy ground — a miry 

waste." 

** Enough ! " perversely here the other 
cried. 

137 



Heart of Touth 



*^ Give over! Get you up the mountain- 
side ! 
Keep to your mossy pathway if you v^ill — 
The roughest road is soonest up the hill ! 
I shall stop here awhile, among the flowers. 
And rest beneath the trees. In after hours 
I *11 join you on the mountain's topmost 

height. 
I know not how I shall ascend, but night 
Will not have fallen ere I join you. Go ! " 

He waited not for answer : but the low 
And sympathetic voice which oft had held 
Him humbled with its music, rose and 

swelled. 
And broke upon his ear in sweetest tone 
Of friendship, begging, ^* Leave me not 

alone!" 
In notes of warning, crying, ^^Do not go ! " 

He waited not for answer : but the low 
Wind murmured in his ear, and seemed to 

say : 
'^ 'T were better, better, thoughtless youth, 

to stay ! 
To stay were better!" And as on he 

passed, 

138 



Heart of Touth 



Still heedless, — with a deeper, warning 

blast, 
*^The way is long ! " it sighed, '' and short 

the day!"— 
It shouted ! and the woodland echoed, 

^'Stay!" 

He waited not for answer : but a brood 
Of white-winged doves flew over where he 

stood. 
Seeming to whisper, as they sped their way 
On rapid pinion heavenward, ^^ Stay, O 

stay!" 

He waited not for answer — in he strode. 
At once his friend forsaking, and the road. 
Mindless of all — of pain or torn attire — 
He leaped the wall and scrambled through 

the briar. 
His soul was innocent of thought of ill ; 
His heart, untried, was buoyant; and his 

will 
Was steadfast (so he thought) to do the 

right. 
What matter where he wandered, if the 

night 



139 



Heart of Youth 



Should not have fallen ere he gained the 
peak ! 



But surelv, so it seemed, across his cheek. 
The winds, which kissed him in the sun -lit 

way 
Where he before had wandered — which in 

play 

Had sported with his hair and fanned his 

brow — 
Were blowing searchingly and damply now. 
And when he looked, and saw upon his 

hand 
The stain of crimson drops — a purple 

brand 
Where briers had punctured ; when he felt 

the pain. 
At first forgot, now doubly felt again ; 
And looking down beheld the dust, the 

burrs. 
Thick fastened on him — shaken from the 

furze : 
Backward he cast a lingering glance, and 

stood 
As one irresolute. The ground was strewed 
With stubble, broken stones, with last year's 

leaves : 



40 



Heart of Touth 



A prospect desolate. As one who grieves 
For pleasures vanished, and would fain 

return. 
So stood he now, and felt his pulses burn 
With shame that he had wandered from the 

way. 
Again he heard the wind ! It seemed to say, 
^^ Repent ! return ! ye have not wandered 

far!" 
Above his head, from out his golden car. 
The Sun, Apollo, threw a quickening beam. 
Back flew the irised host of doves, agleam 
In every pinion with a golden glow ; 
And circling in the air, above, below, 
** Ye have not wandered far ! " they seemed 

to cry, — 
*' Repent ! return ! " — then vanished in the 

sky. 
Again he heard a voice — or seemed to hear. 
Or voice or echo, sounding in his ear 
It startled him, as if before his eye 
His friend deserted had come suddenly. 

He listened, — turned, — had fled the 
dull abode. 
And in a moment would have gained the 
road, — 



141 



Heart of Youth 



When yonder field again his eye besets. 

The purple field — to him still violets ! 

'* I will not go," he cried, — and on his 

knees 

Down flung himself, — ** till I have gathered 

these!" 
A stagnant pool was there. It did not 

flow. 
But moved to right or left as wind might 

blow ; 
And on its surface curling leaves careered 
And severed lily - pads. Dim, withered, 

weird, 
A ghostly cypress-tree and meadow-larch 
Above the margin reared a rugged arch. 
Throwing a slanting shadow on the rank 
Wet deadly nightshade growing on the bank. 

And here the seeker after purple flowers 
Knelt fondly down to while away the hours. 



O hours — O days ! O rapid months 
and years ! 
O heights ungained ! O unavailing tears ! 



42 



Old Timothy John, 

AA'D HIS FREQUEAfT REFRAIN, 
''POTATOES! OH, POTATOES r' 



Not all the heroes of the earth 

Have gained their victory with the sword 
Not every child of noble birth 

Has borne the escutcheon of a lord. 

Full oft, perchance, by crumbling tomb. 
By darkling waters' whirling flow. 

May star-eyed asters beauteous bloom. 
And fragrant-everlasting grow ! 



Old Timothy John was a marvelous man. 
And always a happy one, too, as he 
ran. 
In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
^' Six dollars, and health, and a hand-cart ! " 

said he ; 
*' Oh, who in the city can wealthier 
be! — 
* Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 



H3 



Old "Timothy John 



The hush of the morning was stirred by his 

voice. 
And ever till evening he offered a choice 

Of several kinds of potatoes. 
'* I v^^arrant them sound as a drum ! " cried 

John, 
Though this v^as a hollow^ comparison ! — 
** Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! " 

Nor ever a wife or a child had he ; 

Poor fellow ! no weight ever lay on his knee 

But a bushel or so of potatoes. 
His cart was his wife, and his child, and his 

friend ; 
^' To a family - carriage^'*'* said he, ** I 
pretend ! — 
* Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 

Full certainly Tim was a marvelous man. 
And quite a philosopher, too, as he ran. 

In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
'* A pox o' your logic ! " cried moralist John : 
** Men soon would decease if they did n't 
live on — 
' Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 



144 



Old Timothy John 



'' An' talk o' your ' Nature ' and ' Physics' ! " 

said Tim, 
While staring his audience looked at him 

And then at his load of potatoes. 
*' Ho, ho ! " he said, shoving his cart in the 

pause, 
**Is n't here an effect that 's ahead o' the 
cause ? — 
* Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 

Not much of a Christian, perhaps, was 

Tim ; 
But often his measure ran over the brim 
As he sold to the poor their potatoes. 
'* Do n't mind the odd sixpence," he also 

would say. 
If he saw they were really ill able to 
pay. 
*' Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! " 

The boys loved his coming ; and often they 

cried, 
'^ Oh, please ! dear old Tim ! " — so he gave 

them a ride 
On the top of his load of potatoes. 



H5 



Old 'Timothy John 



The girls loved his coming ; — and one, I 

know. 
Once threw him a kiss ! though he called it 
'*a blow!'' 
*^ Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! " 

Not much of a scholar, perhaps, was he ; 
Though seldom he passed in an ^*X'' for 
a << Fr 
As he paid for a load of potatoes. 
^ ^ Oh, where is your grammar ! ' ' cried 

Timothy John : 
**Two tens and a cypher don't make 
twenty-one ! — 
^ Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 

No loud politician was honest old Tim ; 
Yet no one could purchase a vote of him 
Though they bought his whole load of 
potatoes. 
**I vote for the man I think most of," 

said he, 
*'And he would n't oiFer a bribe to 
me ! — 
' Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 

146 



Old 'timothy John 



^' My choice is the man," cried Timothy 
John, 

^' Who '11 help push the world's great hand- 
cart on ! — 
And none of your * small potatoes.' 

The man who could purchase my vote when 
he would. 

Would purchase my liberty, too, if he 
could ! — 
^ Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 

Full certainly Tim was a marvelous man. 
And always a happy one, too, as he ran. 

In the rear of his load of potatoes. 
He sang from a heart overflowing and free. 
And never mistrusted Futurity he. — 
*^ Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! " 

But Timothy John, a few harvests ago. 
Was noticed as steering unwontedly slow 

With his cargo of new potatoes. 
*^ In the spring," he would say, *^ I shall go 

under ground ; — 
The biggest potato the hemisphere round ! 
* Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! ' " 



H7 



Old Timothy John 



God grant that if Tim has indeed since 

found 
The Garden where fruits are supposed to 
abound, — 
Though never, perhaps, potatoes, — 
God grant that his voice may be heard on 

high 
In loftier strains than his own old cry, — 
^' Potatoes — oh, potatoes ! *' 



148 



College Hill 



\W'ntten after Long Absetue^ 

One thought to-day, and one alone. 

Has filled the horizon of my mind : 
And fairer sunbeam never shone 

On eyes that long had wandered blind. 
My heart to-day, with happy thrill. 
Has been with thee, O College Hill ! 
With thee, with thee, 
O College Hill ! 

The thunder of far Alpine Hills, 

The storm-cloud of the Southern Seas, 
The murmur of Spain's murmuring rills, — 
Of these I 've dreamed — nor dreamed 
of ease. 
But happiest thoughts my bosom fill 
Whene'er I turn, O College Hill, 
To thee, to thee, 

O College Hill ! 

The room grows wide wherein I sit : 
These narrow, city walls expand : 

I see again thy robin flit, 

I see thy lawns on every hand, — 



149 



College Hill 



As green, as vocal, as the rill 
That danced adown the sacred hill 
Of Helicon, 

O College Hill ! 

I see thy rising slopes, — thy halls. 

O Mother-Earth ! thou 'rt greener there ! 
And gentler be the rain that falls. 

And sweeter, balmier be the air. 
Forever, and forever still. 
Upon thy breast, O College Hill ! 
On thy loved breast, 
O College Hill ! 

Again I seem to see thy trees, — 

Thy silver-maple, mountain-ash; 
And dearer to my heart are these 
Than Eastern vine or calabash ! 
I would not part with these, to till 
By fair Euphrates, College Hill ! 
Or Gihon's edge, 

O College Hill ! 

Again I see, — more blest than all, — 
Full many a dear, remembered face ; 

Again I hear the laugh, the call. 

The cheer that rang from place to place, — 



150 



College Hill 



The laugh and cheer that echo still 
About thy halls, O College Hill, 
Could I but hear, 

O College Hill ! 

Again, in thought, I grasp the hand 

Of comrades north and southward gone ; 
I follow them ! and in the land 

Of Danube, Rhine, and Amazon 
Again I feel the electric thrill 
I knew on thee, O College Hill, 
When hand clasped hand. 
On College Hill ! 



151 



Confessions of a Voluptuary 
I 

A^OLUPTUARY, I! At dawn's first flash. 
While wretched thousands are condemned 
to sleep, 

I rise and in luxurious coolness splash, — 
Then on my silent courser joyous leap 

To seek the hill-top or the woodland stream. 

Or watch the lighthouse as it pales its beam. 
The robin and the bobolink and I 
Have kindred passion for the morning sky. 



II 

While others drudge at kitchen board or fire. 
Compelled for breakfast's needs to broil 
or brew, 
I talk with novelists who never tire. 

Or wing with poets the ethereal blue. 
I 'd rather bathe my soul than pots and 

plates, — 
Would barter Wedgwood for a bag of dates : 
For I have learned that simplest fare is best. 
And nuts and fruits make mealtime-seasons 
blest. 



15 



Confessions of a Voluptuary 

(Forgive me, flocks and herds, — sweet- 
breath 'd as Ind, — 
That range the prairie and the pasture 
deep ! 
Forgive me that in ignorance I sinned : 

That you were once my sacrifice I weep. 
Besides ! men learn that they £nd heahhier 

blood 
In pulse than flesh, in figs than carnal flood. 
The soul sincere that seeks mind's regions 

fair 
Loves fragrant foods that bloom in sun 
- and air. ) 



III 

When toil begins, and comrades fret and 
shirk, 

I freshen labor with the spirit's test. 
Imagination never hindered work. 

In perfect product is completest rest. 
I take my pleasure as I go along, 
And try to make my daily toil my song. 

Through half a hemisphere or half a mile. 

The load pulls easiest harnessed with a 
smile. 



-^t) 



Confessions of a Voluptuary 



IV 

At evening's hour, when others haste to 
dress. 
Condemned to theatre or fashion's whirl, 
I sit and give my daughter a caress. 

Or in the wine of thought dissolve a 
pearl. 
(The pearl is often art's or history's page. 
Which thought — on-leading to a Golden 
Age — 
Would fain transmute into such Path of 

Fate 
As blind might follow to Elysian Gate.) 

A Golden Age? I 'm in it even now ! 

For, wanting httle, I have some for others. 
(If any, hungry, at my feast would bow. 
My morn or evening's richness is my 
brother's !) 
My fond desire is that the world may 

see 
Earth gives enough for all humanity. 
Men only need a willingness to share. 
And all the world would breathe ambrosial 
air. 



154 



Confessions of a Voluptuary 

V 

'T is true I little have of what men prize. 
And often (like the saints) wear shining 
garb ; 

But having mirthfulness and open eyes 

I bind wdth velvet life's metallic barb, — 

Holding contentment, though in wooden 
walls. 

Better than selfishness in tinseled halls. 

While earth's rich Saturnalia still is mine, 
I shall not fail of spirit's oil and wine. 

I would not change my modest daily lot 

For any wealth that brought with it a care : 
I love my ease too well to wash to blot 

My freedom of the sky and sea and air. 
I sink myself in soul and sense each day. 
And in voluptuous shamelessness grow gray. 

Nay ! — sink myself in joy each hour 
that 's rung. 

And grow each year voluptuously young. 



155 



In Quest to Know 



[Dedication of " The Complete Life " (a small 
volum,e of moral essays) " To my friend and 
fellow-explorer^ Harold Eddowes, in grate- 
ful mem,ory of many happy afternoon rambles^ 
in sum^mer and in winter^ about Fox River 
valley^ Illinois, during which — * exploring 
IVature^ both outwardly and inwardly — we 
talked not seldom of matters such as those treated 
of in this little book : 1884-1887:' ] 



Oh, who shall say, my brother and my 

friend, — 
Shall e'er again our feet together hie? 
Oh, blest the woodlands, blest the peacefiil 

sky 
Where oft we two, light-hearted without 

end. 
Our eager way, as children might, w^ould 

wend ! 
The first spring flowers were those which 

met our eye. 
The hurrying, road-edged river running by 
Ne'er failed us once — its every nook and 

bend 



.56 



In ^est to Know 



Fresh corners oiFered for our search and 

growth. 
But years are flying — though they still are 

grand ! 
Be ready, friend ! Ere long, perchance, we 

go 
A farther road than any, where we both 

May solve the mystery of some other land. 

And wander joyous still, in quest to Know. 



DULUTH, Mmnesota, June, 1888. 



157 



up Higher 



(Acceptance of an Invitation fro77i S. C) 

Brother and Lover ! whom I soon shall see : 
Whose call I follow to learn Liberty ! 
The noon- day terror calleth me on wings 
To where the pine upon Monadnock sings. 
I toil and sweat, as thou amid the hay. 
But lack what gives the beauty to thy day — 
Fragrance of clover, coolness in the deeps 
Beneath low branches where the long grass 

creeps. 
And — most of all — the high horizon's rim. 
Where, swathed in beauty, the snow islands 

swim. 

Spirit of Nature ! who to me art peace ! 

Happy when thou for me dost speak release. 

And with the call from lowlands by the sea, 

'* Friend, come up higher!" mak'st me 

once more free ! 

Yea, *^ come up higher," — where the 
mountain's crown 
Is kissed by coolness as the night sweeps 
down; 



158 



up Higher 



Where darting dragon-fly and cawing crow 
Alike the wholesome life of Nature know, — 
Unbound by sorrow, and unstained by wrongs 
That in the human world drown angels' songs. 
Ah, is it not a wretched daily plight 
That with our scheming we hide heavenly 

Hght! 
We dream our petty plans shall scale the 

skies ; — 
We know no: we are blinding our own eyes 
To sights and sounds and spiritual worth 
A myriad times surpassing those of earth. 

'^ Up higher " then indeed I And as my 
feet 
Shall shake from them the dust of city street. 
May mind and soul both likewise open fair 
To hints of Spirit's intellectual air. 
*' Up higher '' not alone from sea to hill, — 
But higher to the highest heights Oi Will ; 
Up higher to the peace beyond all strife. 
Up higher to the calm of God's own life. 



Boston, July 8, i8go. 



59 



Star and Cross 



** The time has come when all men shall be 

free!" 
Thus in my dream an Angel spake to me : 
An Angel on whose forehead gleamed a 

star, — 
Beneath whose feet reclined a shattered spar. 

Bright was her countenance, though dread 

her word ! 
Raptured I gazed, yet shuddered as I heard : 

*^I am Inspirer of the Modern Seer: 
Science, — ' Star-eyed,' men call me, — and 

do well ! 
Secrets of Past and Coming Time I tell; 
Earth's child - conceptions fade now I am 

here ! 
In hope foundationless, alterne with fear. 
Before the central scaffold of the years 
Full long a time a thoughtless world has 

bowed. 
Now see we clearer ! clearer still shall see ! 
Take hence the Cross ! — here, wrap it in 

its shroud ! 
Haste ye, and bear it — wet with wasted 

tears — 

1 60 



Star and Cross 



Futile as sign of Immortality — 

To Arimathean Joseph's rock-cut tomb 

(Where he for Greatness made in love fair 

room). 
And lay it where its Victim's ashes be ! 
The Star henceforth be symbol — stars give 

light : 
The Cross's origin was Lust and Night." 

The vision smiled, and light upon me broke. 
But some — '^It thundered, not an Angel 
spoke!" 



i6i 



Merry Christmas 



In the roar of the world's busy hive 
There is better for some than to *' thrive." 
There are songs in the chill winter air ; 
They summon to do and to dare : — 
'^ Peace on earth unto men of good will ! " 
Above all the pain and the ill. 
Merry Christmas ! 

O angels who voiced the high dream 
That had birth beside Galilee's stream ! 
The cross was not far from the song, — 
And the thorns to high dreams still belong ! 
But the peace, the exuberant thrill 
In the soul of all men of good will ! — 
This makes Christmas. 



162 



God and Man 



Where is Beauty ? Where is Grace ? 

Their strength what Power embodies ? 
Look within a human face : 

Where love and help are, God is. 
Seek this mystery to trace ! — 
Heaven and earth its lines embrace. 
Souls, and suns, and stellar space. 

Wondrous is the mighty Power 
In which we have our being ! 

Every day and every hour 

Brings joy for hearing, seeing ; 

Joy of stream and star and flower, 

Joy of sky-flung spectrum -bower. 

Planet-haze and atom-shower. 

Love, no less, of human hearts. 
Which makes all life worth living. 

From the One, the Only, starts, 
Man's highest glory giving. 

This to know transcends all arts, — 

From the Whole the partial darts ; 

Man's love God's love counterparts. 



163 



Sage and Clown 



I SAW two men as I walked up town : 
Men called one a sage, and the other a clown. 

I 

The sage had just come from the halls of 

debate. 
Where his '* wisdom and courage" had 

^* saved the State.'* 
Yet I saw him just now, with self-confident 

grin. 
At doors where true wisdom and strength 

ne'er go in. 
The crowd at his heels was surging thick. 
And he, in his pride, with a gold-headed 

stick. 
Was reviewing again, with much flourish in 

air. 
How well he had *^ captured the senators " 

there. 
^^ And they voted at last," said this wise 

politician, 
^* Not according to theirs, but to my 

volition ! 
I ever can vanquish the men who * think ' ! " — 



164 



Sage and Clown 



And then he moved inward to ^^ take a 

drink''; 
And, stumbling in turning, he tripped o'er 

a child. 
And greeted him harshly, with threatenings 

wild. 

This, one of the men whom I saw up town : 
With *^the brain of a sage" — and the 
heart of a clown. 



II 

Quick struggling forward, with look of alarm. 
Then saw I the other, just come from his 

farm. 
That a *' man " could thus rude to a wee 

bairn be. 
From his cheek drove his soul's calm ecstasy. 
His brow wore a frown such as one before 
Must have had who the sorrows of many 

bore 
While helpless the harshness of men to 

retrieve : 
Yet his eyes' -light was love, as when angels 

grieve. 



165 



Sage and Clown 



The babe he uplifted from where he lay 

crushed. 
And with words of endearment his sobbings 

hushed. 
In his strong arms tenderly bore he the child. 
And pointed where high, golden clouds were 

piled. 
And bade him hear bird-songs in yonder 

wood : 
'^Behold, dear! The Mother of all is 

good!" 

This, the other of two whom these rhymings 

would gauge : 
With '^ the brain of a clown" — and the 

heart of a sage. 



1 66 



The Sorrowing Wind 

I SAT awaiting one who did not come. 
Against my window the November rain 
Pattered a weird and pitiful refrain — 
Never dear Mother Nature's voice is dumb. 
Drearily, as in penitence, the wind 
Murmured a Miserere — had it sinned ? - 
Had it been boisterous upon the deep ? 
Had it been cruel — tossing ships about. 
And sending sailors to their watery sleep? 
With aimless fury and disastrous rout 
Had it been leveling dim forest aisles. 
And devastating fields for miles and miles ? 



167 



The Laughing Philosopher 

[Read to a Literary Chib on a ^^Hohnes " Nighty 

Oh, not do saints and bards alone 

Who speak the high, the solemn verse. 

And counsel but in serious tone. 
Help on the better from the worse. 

To me it seems, the lighter song. 
The sparkle and the flash of wit. 

That gurgle, gush, and float along 
And in and out and yonder flit. 

Not knowing quite what shore they reach. 
Nor 'neath what bridge, nor by what 
strand. 

Nor deem that they a '* Gospel " preach. 
May also guide to Happier Land. 

And so our Poet of to-night, — 
His verses ripple, gurgle, gush. 

Yet bear us with a charmed might. 
With here a lag, and there a rush. 

To where we see that lofty deed 
Doth Life of the Divine disburse. 



68 



The Laughing Philosopher 

As every dew-drop on the mead 
Reveals the rounded universe. 

I saw him once — this poet gay — 

Beside a window in the street : 
What potent presence there that day 

Could hold so fine a poet's feet? 

I saw his face one beaming smile — 
Intense enjoyment gleam' d and shone. 

Two mimic dogs, on wires, the while. 
Were tugging at a worsted bone ! 

He turned — eves met — he smiled the more. 

''Best thing I 've seen," said he (and 
bowed), 
'' Since last I by the Common's door 

Heard Punch and Judy clamor loud." 

Ah, well ! As the odd scene we spurned, 
''Life 's seldom harmed," said he, "by 
fiin. 

I like your apples southward turned ; 
They ripen mellowest in the sun." 

With him I too am still a child. 
I love my baby's simplest toys; 



169 



T^he Laughing Philosopher 

Can dance or blow the whistle wild 
With any dozen girls or boys. 

And Deepest Thought nor Highest Hope 
Is hindered by such moment's dash. 

I 'm helped by sunshine, when I grope. 
Far more than by the lightning's flash. 

Yet, too, the High we need to spell ! 

The loftiest shown is none too far ! 
Holmes ? Yes, but Emerson as well. 

To hitch our wagon to a star. 

We need to join the two in one. 
The happy and the serious air. 

Ah, what of good might not be done 
By progeny of such a pair ! 

The age demands a nobler race 

Than habits now this whirling ball : 

Be ours the Problem Vast to face. 
Be ours to answer to the Call. 



I/O 



Lowell 



What was thy Message, Poet, to our day ? 
What call of God, earth's meanness to 

retrieve ? . . . 
As when one stands upon a hill at eve. 
And sees rich valleys fade in growing gray. 
Till blooming field and forest-girdled bay 
Are lost in gloom, and man and Nature 

grieve. 
Yet, glancing up, finds splendors that re- 
lieve, — 
Star-hosts that hold on high their glowing 

way : 
So, in an age with richest gainings fraught. 
Men have seen Greatness fade, and feared 

the worst ! 
Seen selfishness down-settle like a pall ! 
But lo ! Man's power divine to reach the 

Ought — 
This the glad light which on thy \nsion 

burst. 
Prophetic of Love lord at last o'er all. 



171 



To James Vila Blake 

[Printed^ and sent by certain friends to many 
other friends^ on his Birthday. — ^905.] 

Poet of lofty thought and artist sight. 
Musician keen, whose ears catch dulcet notes. 
Wise essayist, whose dullest page is bright. 
Sane critic — seeing suns, ignoring motes ; 

Preacher whose finest texts are writ in deeds. 
Impelling nobleness in young and gray ; 
Teacher whose art allures from listless meads 
To heights where Song and Masque hold 
purest sway ; 

More than all these, rich lover and rare 

friend, 
A thousand times sweet friend and lover 

true ! — 
Small weight a world's admiring praise could 

lend 
Of worth or grace to helper such as you. 

Bays are not theirs alone w^hose deeds men 

laud: 
Wreaths greenest are still theirs whom few 

applaud. 



172 



Dream-Counsel 



I DREAMED of thec last night. 

Brother and friend — 
And all the sky was hght 

And without end ! 
Thou seemed with wisdom fraugkt. 

Companion mine ; 
And, joyous, I was taught 

In things divine. 

I came to thee in care. 

From wearying mart : 
We parted Ught as air. 

And glad of heart. 
Where disappointment's pain 

Had weighed me low. 
Thou changed the evening rain 

To sunrise-glow. 

Where I — because my strife 

For Truth and Day 
Seemed fruitless, and my Hfe 

But thrown aw^ay — 
Was downcast and in tears. 

With cheering voice 



173 



Dream-Counsel 



Thou banished all my fears. 
And cried, *' Rejoice ! 

*' Rejoice ! it is the quest y 
'Tis not the art 

Of gaining ends, that best 

Fulfills life's part. 
What though for thee the rain. 

The briar and burr? 
Oh, surely not in vain 

Thy strugglings were. 

'^ Through years thy aim, thy call. 

Has been for things 
Exalted over all 

That ^ Comfort ' sings. 
* Truth,' *Duty,' 'Good, 'thy words. 

And * Boldness ' too. 
Beyond what common herds 

Yet ever knew. 

''In peace, then, sleep, this night, 

O troubled heart ! 
Though low, yet is thy plight 

The better part. 



174 



Dream-Counsel 



And when, at last, immured 

In earth for Rest, 
Thy soul shall be assured 

The strife was best." 

So spake thou to me, friend. 

Within my dream. 
Showing the nobler end 

To be, not seem. 
Content, then, I, to dare. 

Without success ! 
Though poverty my share, 

I 've blessedness. 



175 



The Wail of Low Humanity 

Ah, whither shall we look, and whither 
turn ? — 
Life's road is bleak ! 
About us fiercely wrongs and passions burn : 
In happier paths our feet would fain sojourn. 
Where shall we look ? — ah, whither shall 
we seek? 
For we are weak. 

Up to the silent heavens in vain we raise 

Our blinded sight. 
Men through the ages, through long years 

and days. 
Their supplications fond, in prayer and praise. 
Have raised with looks like ours, and faces 
white — 
Yet sank in Night. 

To You, then, who have fought with Fate 
like us. 
And gained a place ! — 
Who by no gift or aid miraculous 
Have fled the Woe, the Vale Calamitous, 
But in Man's natural might alone, and 
grace. 
Have won life's race, — 



176 



Tihe Wail of Low Humanity 

To You, O Brothers higher up, we turn ! 

Our human kin ! 
Lend ye the means for us life's heights to 

earn. 
Uplift with love, where now your brows are 
stern. 
Do ye o'erturn for us earth's wrong and 
sin, — 
And let us in. 



177 



Justice ! Freedom ! 



How SHALL all mankind be lifted. 

Strength be brought to weakness lowly. 

Toil's oppression-clouds be rifted. 
Right be recognized as holy ? 

Many eras, many sages 

Life's sublimer words have spoken : 
Flee your blood-stained heritages ! 

Justice ! Freedom ! — these the token. 



178 



The Dayspring 



Earth's night is waning ! Beautiful and fair 
The day-spring flashes gold across the deep. 
I see the wailing nations cease to weep. 
For War and Want lie wounded in their lair 
And know their end approacheth. Stricken, — 

bare, — 
Bewildered by the Day, — the selfish heap 
Of woes that thrive in darkness take their 

leap 
To escape the sunbeams netting in their hair. 

O human race ! whose hope-illumined heart 
Greets light with light in answering ecstasy. 
Let Love and Knowledge flame to more and 

more ! — 
Flame till there shines on every field and mart 
The longed-for, deathless day of Liberty, 
And every sea laps sunlit Plenty's shore. 



179 



Accelerant 



For evil or for good we live each day ; 
Accelerant the good or ill speeds on. 
Brothers and sisters! ere earth's hours be 
gone 
What will ye answer while the nations 
pray r 



His dream was some high gift to Coming 
Time. 
But he was powerless — what great deed 

could he ! 
Modest in name and mien, his brain was 
free 
And his heart willing. Was there aught 
sublime ? 

Temptation came to him. He did not 
lack 
The taint of blood from old heredity 
Urging him — spelling him. Yet valiantly 

On the alluring ill he turned his back. 



180 



Accelerant 



Later came one he loved, and they were 
wed. 
His children had far less the taint abhorred. 
While brain and will were trebly in them 
scored. 
They led the world on after he was dead. 



Unto himself alone no man may live; 

Accelerant his strength or weakness grows. 
In blessing or in curse, where 'er it flows. — 

To coming ages what wilt thou, friend, 
give r 



To Raymond L. Bridgman 

[On learning of the popular oppositio7t to his 
book^ ''^ Loyal Traitors ^ — 1903^ 

** He means it well," with smile (or frow^n) 

they say, — 
** But, lack ! he carries his ^reform' too far. 
One fails of wisdom who o'erleaps the bar 
Which prudent hands have stretched athwart 

the way. 
A yard or two if you would run, you may : 
But if you race to lengths unpopular 
Your zeal offends. Who would his Cause 

not jar 
In reason's middle vantage-ground must 

stay." 

Oh, weak, who make a '^ middle ground" 

for Right ! 
And doubly weak who, seeing valor wield 
The axe to topple Wrong, would dull the 

blade ! 
Who loves his land, against that land must 

fight 
If she be tyrant ; — traitor if he yield 
While prostrate Liberty is bound and flayed. 



182 



In Admiration of World- 
Helpers 

O Earnest Fathers ! Sweet-faced Sisterhood ! 
Martyrs and Saints of whate'er faith or dress 
Who through the years left no man comfort- 
less; 
In thought of others — self in self subdued — 
Striving to make mankind more pure and good ! 
Fain by the warning word or breathed caress 
To stay earth's evil and perfidiousness ; 
Scourged, censured, lacking bread and hab- 
itude ! 
Would " that To - day — this trebly fine 

To-day — 
We thy helped brothers 'mid the world's 

mad strife 
Might through thy love and sacrifices rare 
Be led to walk thy same strong, towering way : 
Calming the world that hungereth for life 
By breath of Brotherhood's supernal air. 



183 



What Are We Here For? 



[It is said that Saint Bernard every day, on 
awaking, asked himself the question, " What 
am I here for ? " ] 

What are we here for, brothers mine. 

Upon this Road of Life? 
What mean for us the stars that shine. 

The fields with beauty rife ? 
What power hath Truth to stir our zeal ? 

What cry hath human need? 
'Mid earth's conflicting woe and weal. 

What voices should we heed ? 

What are we here for? Here to grow 

In every grace divine ! 
The beauty of the world to know. 

And in its beauty shine ; 
To follow Truth where'er it lies. 

Through loneliness and scorn ; 
To hold earth's bounty equal prize 

Of every child that 's born. 

What are we here for in this maze 
Which no man yet hath solved? 



184 



What Are We Here For ? 

Here to achieve the noblest days 
Since first the sphere revolved ! 

Not ours to dull the soul with mirth, 
Outdrowning human groan. 

But ours to sublimate the earth 
And bring Man to his own. 



185 



Up to the Heights 

I DREAMED the statuc of a god 
Stood high in every market-place. 
That all who thither toiling trod 
Might see the beauty of a face 
Noble, and freed in every trace 
From want, from selfishness, from sin. 
Yet seemed it of the human race. 
Nor wholly difficult to win. 

Indeed, thrice daily, morn, noon, night. 
To all the hurriers to and fro 
Each statue spake: ^'The Cosmos bright. 
Each gracious force, above, below. 
Earth's possibilities but show! 
Man can attain whate ' er he feels ; 
Up to the heights ' tis yours to go ; 
Your gods are but your high ideals." 

Is this the Vision of the Race? 
This its high nobleness of heart ? 
Be ours to win that finer grace. 
Ours to do valiantly our part ! 



186 



up to the Heights 



Thus from the race's ranks shall start 
The sonship truly of the Best, 
And Love ' s .divine and perfect art 
Henceforth be man's redeeming quest, 



187 



Good Shall Conquer, Never 
Fear 

[Written for the Tiiite, ''^Triumph By-and-byy^ 

Be we the courage-bringers ! 
Let laugh the bells, O ringers ! 
Earth's hero-hearts and singers 

Promise peace. 
Despair and grief why borrow? — 
Full long has man had sorrow ! 
Work joyful for the morrow, — 

Wrong shall cease. 

Chorus, — Never fear ! Light is growing ! 
Never fear ! Truth is flowing 
Where humanity shall share it, — 

Never fear ! 
Never fear ! clouds are fleeing ; 
Never fear ! men are seeing 
That the Good at last shall conquer,— 

Never fear! 

With hope and high endeavor 
Earth's great have striven ever 
The bonds of ill to sever, — 
We may trust ! 



i88 



Good Shall Conquer^ Never Fear 

The Past's prophetic preaching. 
The Present's clearer teaching. 
All ages' forward-reaching, — 
Win they must ! 

Chorus, — Never fear ! etc. 



Man yet is onward striving. 
All happy Art is thriving. 
The Age of Good arriving, — 

Give it scope ! 
The heights of being call us ; 
If doubt nor fear appall us 
Life's splendor shall befall us. 

Work and hope ! 

Chorus, — Never fear ! etc. 



89 



Man's Best Word God's 
True Word 

i8gi. 

The highest Truth is ever Word of God. 

* ' My doctrine is not mine, ' ' said he of old, 
**But His that sent me." And the fabled 
rod 
Which Moses wielded was not his, 'twas 
told. 
But '^ symbol " only of a Vaster Power 
Which feebly he forthshadowed for an hour. 

Ah, much too much ourselves we separate 
From the Divine Effulgence which is All ! 

A Deity far off we paint, and prate 
Of God as hid behind dividing wall. 

Nay, such as this is shadow drear and dun — 

A glow-worm dimness, not the wondrous 
Sun. 

No Word of Good was ever breathed not 
God's! 
No stroke for Freedom but God held the 
arm ! 



190 



Man V Best Word God 's True Word 

Lo, then, to-day, these Creeds' o'erturning 

sods — 
They token Heaven's high shouts, not 

Hell's alarm. 
O let us deem Man's own best Word of 

Hope 
Still God's true Word, and Man's best 

horoscope. 



191 



Earth's Golden Prime Lies 
Infinitely On 

'* If ye continue in my word," said he 

Who walked of old through flower-sprent 
Galilee, 

^^The truth ye then shall know." Ah, 
teacher great ! 

Thy word the world's late years still illus- 
trate ! 

Thy gospel was of simplest thought and 

deed: 
Two words alone thy all embracing creed, — 
To seek ! to love ! The truth of God to seek ; 
In love for man that truth of God to speak. 

♦* And ye have heard it said of olden time, 
* Lo, this ! ' ' Lo, that ! ' But, nay ! earth 's 

golden prime 
Lies infinitely on, where none can see. 
A new commandment, therefore, give I 

thee." 



192 



Earth's Golden Prime 



New days require new thoughts, new words, 

new works. 
Blasphemer he who those new meanings 

shirks ! 
Shall men forever only backward glance? — 
That were to serve but shame and ignorance. 

^^The truth that is, I come not to de- 
stroy"; — 
Truth's service, rather, is divinest joy ! 
The Past did well — it could but blindly see. 
To larger knowledge be as faithful we ! 

O lover wise on hills of Palestine ! 

If still the power to seek and love be thine. 

What joy thou hast, though Truth thyself 

o'er- arch. 
That Man still hastens on his upward march ! 



193 



Fifty Years 



[Sung" at a Senii-Centejtnial Church Celebration. 
Geneva J Illinois^ June^ i8g2.\ 

O TEMPLE sacred to the Past, 

And sacred to the Present too ! 

Thy walls, which Fifty Years outlast. 

To-day we consecrate anew : 

Anew to God, anew to Man, 

To Love, to Helpfulness, to Truth; 

While more in each of these we scan 

Than those who knew thee in thy youth. 

Oh, blest that as the centuries fly . 
Man's soul doth deeper, higher roam ! 
Yet feels the more that earth and sky 
Are but a vaster temple-home : 
Temple that needs no sun to thrill. 
So grand its inner, fadeless light, — 
The Godlike, in the human, still 
Redeeming it from evil plight. 

Honor be thine, O walls grown gray. 
That Freedom here was ever given 
To prophet-souls to point the way 
To higher God and higher heaven. 

194 



Fifty Years 



With Freedom still thy Word be twined, 
O reverend aisles, to us so dear ! 
And other Fifty Years still find 
The voice of Progress echoing here. 

Above the clamors of our day. 

Which fain v^^ould drown the still small voice. 

We hear a mightier Presence say : 

Rejoice, O sons of men ! rejoice ! 

Be open still to prophets' cry ; 

Go on to keener insight yet ! 

Much still remains of Deep and High 

Ere suns and stars of God are set. 



•95 



The Loved and Gone 



[Written for an Anniversary?^ 

Glad thought we give, proved true by tears. 

To those, the loved and gone. 
Who at our side in other years 

Inspired and helped us on. 
Their presence lingers with us still. 

As stars amid the night. 
The while they roam the heavenly hill 

Beyond our earthly sight. 

Oh, more than these who greet our eyes 

Are ye with silent feet ! 
And gratefully we recognize 

Your benediction sweet. 
We may not whisper loud each name, — 

Too sacred is our thought; 
But humbly take, of praise or blame. 

The good ye to us brought. 

Be near us still to aid and bless. 
Ye friends of other days ! 



196 



T^he Loved and Gone 



Soul yet doth feel your fond caress. 

Your olden likeness raise. 
Thus heart doth still respond to heart. 

And ye, though gone above. 
Are never dead, but still are part 

Of all our life and love. 



197 



^^Look Back At Times" 

Each morn, along the dewy street. 

As cityward I went, 
* ' Part way ' ' with me her eager feet 

My little daughter bent. 

Then, as I hastened from her side. 

And fast the distance grew, 
*^*Look back, look back at tim.es i " she cried, 

' * I '11 wave my hand to you ! ' ' 

Look back ? Ah, little did we think 
Her phrase of childhood love 

In after years my food and drink — 

My soul's delight — would prove. 

Unmeasuredly I now rejoice 

In that sweet earher day ; 
Nor need I now to hear her voice 

Her summons to obey. 

Yea, oft, my child, I backward look, — 

Again those years are mine ; 
Their pages are my Golden Book 

With legends all divine. 



198 



^' Look Back at Times'' 

Within its leaves, as in a dream. 
Dear visions come and go. 

Thank God that they are what they seem 
And ever sweeter grow ! 

Your baby hand still clasps my own. 

Your kiss is on my cheek. 
Though nearly twenty years have flown 

Their blessing grows not weak. 

O vanished darling ! — still my pride ! — 
Where roam thy feet to-day ? 

Forever young thy years abide. 

Though mine are flecked with gray. 

Forever young abide her years — 
Yea, all immortal she ! 

And still — the balm for all my fears — 
She waves her hand to me. 



199 



Work 



To SEEK — invent — discover ! To create ! 
Mountains to carve, wild zones to subjugate. 
The seas to merge, rude metals to refine. 
Harsh sounds to mingle in mellifluous line. 
Disease to vanquish, famine to repel. 
World - thought to lift, and peal Wrong's 

passing-bell, — 
The daily toil of common mill and mart. 
The humblest toil, if mixed with brain and 

heart, — 
Lo, 'tis man's angel, — 'tis the Hfe of life ! 
Pain fails of power, and strife no more is 

strife. 
Swiftly flies doubt, and grieving follows fast. 
Blown on the wings of this supernal blast. 

What art thou. Labor ? Nay, what art thou 
not ! — 

For world's unkindness, soul's sweet garden- 
spot ; 

Shade if detraction's scorching airs arise; 

Sun to illume fear's direfiil phantasies; 

Lover to give the spirit pure caress ; 

Friend to dispel bereavement's loneliness; 



200 



Work 

Quencher of wants if poverty befall ; 
Narcotic draught for pain tyrannical ; 
Disdained aiFection 's Lethe ; — magic wand 
To waft us swiftly, soothingly, beyond 
Earth ' s every selfishness and meanness dire. 
And bathe the soul in heaven's own blissful 
fire! 

Do Nature's forces ever idle lurk? 

Doth she, the Mighty One, not ceaseless work 

To-day as when at her evolving call 

From chaos tow'rd perfection sprang earth's 

ball ? 
So toil ye also, hands, heart, brain o' me ! — 
Till latest hour, strive on in ecstasy ! 
Strive on ? Yea, love on ! — toil and love 

are one 
To him who toils nor wishes toilings done. 
Did erst the morning stars with rapture sing ? 
Is 't writ with peace heaven's echoing arches 

ring ? 
So human souls through their most secret aisles 
When Labor, baffling weakness, soars and 

smiles. 



20 1 



Love's Predicament 

In lonng I do find such sweet employ 
That more of love I make each hour my 

quest. 
Yet presently I find this puzzling joy : 
Am I Love's servitor — or Love's dear guest ! 
For while in strowing of my love I live. 
No less of love remains to quench love's 

thirst ; 
In truth, to strow is gain, for though I give. 
Beseems more love is mine than mine at first. 
Shall I then cease to love, and so give more ? 
Deny myself, and let the world have all? 
So be it! Self I '11 hide behind Love's 

door, — 
Enswathe me fondly in Love's blindfold pall. 
Oh, reckless venture ! for thus love I most. 
And Love, thrice over, beams my smiling 

host. 



202 



To the Muse 



[Written after long verse-barrenness consequent 
on iuaterial engross77tents. — ^904^ 

Is YET my penance ended ? Will the Muse, 
Against whom I offended, come once more 
And dwell with me, and bless me as of 

yore ? — 
Fondly, as erst, caress m.e r radiant hues 
Of gracious dawn throw o'er me? magic 

dews 
Of heavenly peace outpour me ? Oh, the 

.store 
Of loftiest soul -uplifting, when heart's door 
Lies open, and Song's gifting lore ensues ! 

Then come to me. Divine One ! Lo, I 
kneel 

Humbly where knelt I oft to know thy kiss. 
How have I lived, not having touch oi thee ! 
Even as sinking swimmers when they feel 
Shore's sands beneath them, welcome I this 

bliss ! 
Thy strength supports — exalts — makes 

much of me. 



203 



"In Grateful Love" 

[Dedication, i880y of a collectio7i of verses 
now out of p7'int^ 

To HER whose sympathetic heart hath been 

my stay; 
Whose gentle hand hath guided me in all 

my way ; 
Whose teachings in my childhood's hours 

were love alone; 
Whose arms of counsel, now in youth, are 

round me thrown ; 
To her whose bright example is my guiding 

star; 
Whose love and faith are firmer than the 

hills afar ; 
Whose presence hovers o'er me like some 

holy dove ; — 
To HER these little songs are given, in 

grateful love. 



204 



" Finished " 



\Epilogtie to the collection of verses 77ientioned 
on opposite page. — Dece77iber^ 1880.] 

The year is finished — finished is the book. 
The year was full of days, for good or ill : 
With us it lay the fleeting hours to fill 
With noble deeds. Long hours in dale and 

nook. 
Where haunted pines their odorous needles 

shook. 
Where fern and flower their dewy fragrance 

. spill. 
It gave for our delight. 'Tis dying ! Still, 
New years remain ! With fervor let us look 
To make them really ours. 

And thou, my page ! 
As years with days, so thou with words art 

. ' full! 
Oh, happy I, if on thy friendly way 
Some thought of cheer thou give to youth or 

age. 
Some life encrimsoned make as white as wool. 
Some sorrowing heart allure to dream of day ! 



205 



L' Envoi — ^^ Meteors " 

I SIT in the gloom 
Of my evening room 

On the hill-top high, and gaze on the tomb 
Of darkness which covers earth's beauty and 
bloom . 

O'er the river's gray track 

Rise the hill-slopes black, — 

Like peddlers, each holding a house for a 

pack, — 
Or like Atlas of old, with the town on their 

back 1 

In the northern sky. 

From their throne on high. 

Fair meteors flash on the wondering eye. 

And fall into darkness, and fail, and die : 



Fall suddenly down. 

With the gleam of a crown. 

To fade in the mists and the shadows brown 

Which hazily hang over meadow and town ! 



206 



U Envoi — " Meteors 



The villagers sleep : 

Over valley and steep 

Not a household light breaks the darkness 

deep : 
The pale stars only their vigils keep. 

But look ! through the night 
(Where a meteor bright 
Just vanishing seemed to fall in its flight). 
There shines in a window a welcoming 
light ! — 

A scintillant glare. 

Rich, luminous, rare, — 

As if when the meteor vanished in air 

It charmed a new star into radiance there ! 

— O soul of mine ! 

When the Angel Divine 

Shall summon thee swift to a region be- 
nign, — 

Shall summon thee swift, and thou follow his 
sign, — 



20 



U Envoi — " Meteors " 

Thou wouldst not ask more 

Than some heart on life's shore 

Grow bright with a gleam of thy vanishing 

lore, — 
Grow bright with a luster undreamed of 

before ! 



208 



Index 

PAGE 

Accelerant i8o 

Admiration of World-Helpers, In ... . 183 

Alpha and Omega 38 

And Last of All I LeaiTi It 79 

Beacon-Lights 56 

Beauty, Ideal 13 

Beauty-, Life's 53 

Blake (James Vila), To 172 

Blue Hills in November, In the 26 

Body and Spirit 84 

" Breath from the Fields, A " 80 

Bridgman (Raymond L.), To 182 

Burial-Ground, In a Country 90 

Camarades, Les 94 

Cane from Gethsemane, A 11 1 

Causation 72 

Christmas, Merry 162 

Clown, Sage and 164 

Coin in Any Realm 10 

College Hill 149 

Confessions of a Voluptuary 152 

Crosses, Self-Made 74 

Cross, Star and 160 

Cypress-Crowned 24 

Daffodils 82 

Dayspring, The 179 

Death, the Kiss of 41 

Detritus 18 

Dragon-fly, Sonata of the 98 

Dream-Counsel 173 

Earth at Play, The 93 

Earth's Golden Prime Lies Infinitely On . 192 

Eastward Windows 45 

Enchanted Ground 97 



209 



Index 

PAGE 

Fifty Years 194 

Finished 205 

Forelooking loi 

Forever On ^6 

Gethsemane, A Cane from 11 1 

God and Man • 163 

God's Mariners 58 

Good Shall Conquer, Never Fear .... 188 

Gone 48 

Great, The 116 

Heart of Youth 130 

Holmes (The Laughing Philosopher) . . 168 

How Sing'st Thou, Then? 15 

Ideal Beauty 13 

I Feel that I Know Her 104 

In a Country Burial-Ground 90 

In Admiration of World-Helpers .... 183 

Indian Summer 25 

" In Grateful Love " 204 

In Quest to Know^ 156 

In Suburban Woods 95 

In the Blue Hills in November 26 

" In Thy Youth " 73 

Inward Fires 75 

Janes, Lewis G 121 

Justice! Freedom! 178 

Kiss of Death, The 41 

Known of Old 44 

Last of All I Learn It, And 79 

Laughing Philosopher, The 168 

L'Envoi (" Meteors ") 206 

Life 28 

Life's Beauty 53 



210 



Index 

PAGE 

Life's Hardness, To Prize 14 

" Look Back at Times " 198 

Loved and Gone, The 196 

Love's Predicament 202 

Lowell .- 171 

Man, God and 163 

Man's Best Word God's True Word ... 190 

Man's Opportunity 34 

Merr}^ Christmas 162 

'^Meteors" (L'Envoi) 206 

Mother, The 66 

Muse, To the 203 

My Feathered Preacher ^^i, 

Mystic River 86 

" Of One " 65 

Old Timothy John 143 

Paradise, Soul's (Prelude) 7 

Passing, The 42 

Path, The 16 

Philosopher, The Laughing 168 

Platitudes 69 

Possibility, The Transcendent 40 

"Prepared" 54 

Proem (" Revolve, O Earth 1 ").... . i 

Residuum 22 

Revelation 12 

Sage and Clown 164 

Schoolmaster's Dream, The 125 

Search 57 

Self-Made Crosses 74 

" Signs and Wonders " 60 

So Like the Spring She Stands 96 

Sonata of the Dragon-fly 98 

Sorrowing Wind, The 167 



21 I 



Index 

PAGE 

Soul 68 

Soul's Paradise (Prelude) 7 

Spirals 78 

Spirit, Body and 84 

Star and Cross 160 

Suburban Woods, In 95 

Sunrise in Codman Park 91 

Sunshine 50 

Sweetest Songs Are Never Sung .... 108 

Thyself Within 9 

To James Vila Blake - 172 

To My Old W^heel 92 

To Prize Life's Hardness 14 

To Raymond L. Bridgman 182 

To the Muse 203 

To Truth — My God 67 

Transcendent Possibility, The 40 

Ungrasped 77 

Up Higher 158 

Uplifts of Heart and Will 70 

Up to the Heights 186 

Voluptuary, Confessions of a 152 

Wail of Low Humanity, The 176 

What Are We Here For ? 184 

Wheel, To My Old 92 

" When Young Hearts Love " no 

Who Knows ? 46 

Wind, The Sorrowing 167 

Work 200 

World-Trust 37 

Worship 64 

Youth, Heart of 130 

*' Youth, In Thy " 7^ 

Zeal 11 

212 



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